Before every weightlifting competition, Mohammed Hamada thinks about Gaza.
He thinks about the destruction of his house and its inhabitants, or the mass grave he dug for the inhabitants of the building next door to his.
These circumstances have created a special kind of athlete. One who had to live on animal food to survive, losing 18 kg in the process. And who eventually had to leave Gaza and his family to try to compete in the 2024 Paris Olympics.
“We left Gaza not to escape death,” said the 22-year-old Palestinian weightlifter.
“We left Gaza to fully exercise our right to defend Palestine.”
A booming career
Mohammed comes from a family of weightlifters.
His nieces and nephews all participate in the sport and his older brother, Hussam, has been training him for years as Palestine’s national weightlifting coach.
At just 18 years old, Mohammed made history by becoming the first Palestinian Olympic weightlifter at the Tokyo 2020 Games.
He then won gold at the 2022 International Weightlifting Federation Junior World Championships in Greece.
Mohammed’s career was taking off, but Israel’s war on Gaza, launched on October 7 after a Hamas attack in southern Israel, brought him back down to earth.
The priority for Palestinians in Gaza became their survival as Israel relentlessly bombed the enclave, killing nearly 40,000 people.
And yet, despite all this, Mohammed remained determined to compete in the Olympics.
His first obstacle: fleeing Gaza.
The “passage of death”
Even as rockets and missiles rained down on their Gaza neighborhood of Tuffah, Hussam continued to train his brother.
Lifting weights inside damaged buildings, the couple did what they could.
“It is not resources that make a champion, but circumstances that make a champion,” Mohammed noted.
But despite their continued preparation, it was not until early 2024 that the Hamadas made the decision to attempt to qualify for the Olympics.
Their father suggested they try to leave Gaza, and Hussam and Mohammed set off towards the Rafah border crossing, heading towards Egypt.
After walking for three days, Hussam described the journey as a “death passage.”
“Leaving home was like going to a funeral,” said Hussam, who left behind a wife and three boys aged 13, 11 and six.
“Tareq hugged me and didn’t let go,” Hussam said of his youngest son. “Jude and Khamis were crying.”
Despite the weight of Hussam’s decision to leave, he feels reassured knowing he has the support of his family.
“I feel bad and I wish I didn’t leave them, but they believe in what we are doing, in the Olympic dream and in Mohammed,” Hussam said.
“The Olympic trip is not just Mohammed’s dream, but the dream of the whole family.”
For nearly a month, the Hamada brothers waited in Rafah for the news that would bring them one step closer to their dream: approval from the Egyptian government to leave war-torn Gaza.
After 23 days of waiting, confirmation arrived in a remarkable way.
In early April, with only the clothes on their backs, Mohammed and Hussam said goodbye to Gaza and flew to Thailand to compete in the IWF World Cup on the island of Phuket.
It was the last qualifying event before the 2024 Olympics.
Qualifications for the Games
Even once Mohammed is out of Gaza, qualifying for the Paris Olympics would be difficult.
To earn a wild card for the sport of weightlifting, Mohammed had to attend two qualifying events, including the 2024 IWF World Cup in Thailand.
But Mohammed’s preparation, even without the war in Gaza, was fraught with complexities.
“As a weightlifter, supplements are really important for building strength,” Mohammed said.
“These medicines are not available in Gaza.”
So in 2022, while attending a training camp in the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed bought an over-the-counter supplement to maintain his weight and strength.
“We later discovered that the dietary supplements were counterfeit and contained prohibited ingredients, even though these ingredients were not listed on the supplement packaging,” he said.
“I paid the price for an act I did not knowingly commit,” he said. “Ultimately, it was decided that it was ‘unintentional consumption’ of the substance.”
Mohammed received a temporary suspension.
The IWF World Cup in Thailand would be his first competition in more than two years.
And despite his relief at being back on the international sporting stage, the wounds of war were more visible than ever.
His significant weight loss was a hindrance in a sport that relies so much on muscle and power.
“We left Gaza only 10 days ago (and) I have had very little time to regain my strength,” Mohammed said, between rehearsals in a training hall.
Surrounded by physically fit men and women, Mohammed recalled what he had to eat to survive.
“For nearly 164 days, we ate food unfit for human consumption… including food of animal origin.”
On the day of the competition, Mohammed’s disadvantage was evident.
He lifted 100 kg in the snatch and 120 kg in the clean and jerk. His personal best is much higher: in 2021, he lifted 141 kg in the snatch and 171 kg in the clean and jerk.
But before entering the competition, Mohammed and Hussam knew that he would never qualify based on his performances alone.
In fact, fleeing Gaza and reaching Thailand was a matter of participating in the final Olympic qualifying event.
Despite only taking part in one qualifying event, Mohammed was supported by major sporting bodies.
“We believe that an exception will be made for Mohammed to participate in the Olympics,” said Nader Jayousi, technical director of the Palestinian Olympic Committee.
Jayousi, who has known the Olympian for years, said he believed in Mohammed’s exceptional talent as an athlete.
“But when we’re faced with circumstances like that – famine, starvation, weight loss, death… I don’t think that’s where we apply strict eligibility criteria,” he said.
“He is the representative of an entire nation.”
A long wait
After the World Cup in Thailand, the Hamada brothers moved to Doha, Qatar.
Supported by the Palestinian, Qatari and international Olympic committees, Mohammed began to gain weight and regain strength.
Amid the Hamadas’ strict training regimen, Gaza remained at the forefront.
The strikes continued in their Tuffah neighborhood, while news of their parents and Hussam’s children came in dribs and drabs.
Hussam’s sons sent video updates in front of their razed neighborhood.
“I want to reassure you, we are fine after the bombing of the mosque,” Khamis, 13, can be heard saying in one video.
“The truth is that the situation is more difficult than I imagined,” Mohammed said. “From the first moment I left Gaza, I was obsessed with the fear of losing loved ones.
“When I was in the thick of it, the impact was not as strong, but now I feel a kind of fear, anxiety and sadness,” he added.
The Hamadas sacrificed closeness to their family for Mohammed’s Olympic goal.
But that was not the case.
On June 6, the IWF published the list of athletes who received wild cards for the Paris Games.
Sitting across from each other in their hotel room in Doha, Hussam scanned the website to learn that Mohammed’s name was missing.
“Everything is fine,” the coach said quietly.
Sitting in silence for several minutes, Mohammed finally added: “This is just the beginning for us.”
Although Mohammed will not compete in this week’s Olympic weightlifting competition, he is convinced that the disappointment is just another obstacle.
The brothers have since moved to Bahrain and continue to train five days a week, with the upcoming Summer Olympics in mind.
“We have the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028,” Mohammed said. “We will come back stronger than before.”