As the air above Gaza rumbles with the sound of distant explosions, Mohamed Hatem’s grip tightens on the frame of a cracked wall outside a destroyed building.
He’s there to do more muscle work, one of the most exhausting and difficult calisthenics imaginable, as it requires you to repeatedly lift your entire body weight over a gymnastic bar.
Hatem, 19, doesn’t have the luxury of a bar – just a brutal concrete wedge that can shred your hands in moments if you’re not careful. But for this displaced teenager from the devastated city of Khan Younis, bodybuilding has been an invaluable distraction during the ongoing war on Gaza.
“I try to escape the frightening reality when I exercise,” he told Al Jazeera. “It’s like I was completely outside Gaza. This is the feeling that takes over me when I do bodybuilding.”
During more than a year of Israeli shelling, airstrikes and ground assaults that have killed more than 44,000 people and starved many of the survivors, the young man turned to bodybuilding to help him cope with the unfathomable stress of living in a war zone. .
Hatem has been displaced ten times since the war began thirteen months ago, and like many, he regularly faces severe food shortages.
His real strength lies in his inventiveness. He uses makeshift equipment in a small room in his grandmother’s house in Khan Younis to train, such as weights he fashioned from water cans, a car battery tied to a rope, a school bag filled with salvaged items and rocks that were recovered from nearby rubble.
This room has become a refuge for Hatem, one of the two million people displaced by the war. His family’s home was destroyed by Israeli airstrikes in the early days of the war, and despite limited resources and constant unrest, he remains committed to the pursuit of physical strength as a form of resilience.
“Since the beginning of the war, my dream of building a strong body has faced unimaginable challenges,” he says. “But I’m determined to keep going and use what I can find to replace traditional weights.”
According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Israel’s war on Gaza has created traumatic experiences that “chronic and unrelenting‘Because there is no safe place in Gaza and the available resources for survival are minimal. This war, UNRWA said in August, “goes against traditional biomedical definitions of post-traumatic stress disorder, as there is no ‘post’ in the context of Gaza.”
For Hatem, bodybuilding has been his way out.
“Sport also reduces the tension and terror we live in and the bleak picture of our reality and future. It is fundamental to my mental health, and I find psychological comfort through exercise and participating with my friends,” he explains.
Hatem works to strengthen his biceps using a backpack full of rocks (Mohamed Solaimane/Al Jazeera)
Taking ‘gym motivation’ to a new level
With Israel storming the strip and essential necessities in short supply for the captive population, Hatem finds new ways to stay motivated.
He launched one Instagram page in April, where he posted more than 130 videos sharing snippets of his life, including workouts and meals with canned beans and lentils, revealing the scarcity of fresh food in Gaza. The videos have gained a global following of more than 183,000 people from the United States, Pakistan, India, Jordan, Oman and the United Arab Emirates who admire his relentless drive for bodybuilding. Some of his videos have been viewed millions of times.
A relentless self-improver, Hatem had already taught himself English during the COVID-19 lockdown. On his social media posts, he chooses that language to convey his message to a broader global audience, aware that many others in Gaza are already creating content for Arabic-speaking audiences. His goal is to enhance the current Palestinian experience by using his own story as a bridge.
“My page is called Gym Rat in Gaza,” Hatem explains, “because I want to reach people all over the world in English and show that even in Gaza we have dreams and goals.”
Although the video clips focus on his strict daily regimen to maintain his physical shape in the cramped, shared room where he and his extended family try to create a sense of routine, he says the purpose of the Instagram account is not personal.
“It is a national humanitarian message related to the genocide that is happening to us. While it is true that it affects me, I express the experiences of people living in war,” Hatem told Al Jazeera.
His bodybuilding journey, which began four years ago, was encouraged by his parents and the discipline required for the sport has been a positive outlet for Hatem.
It also introduced the business student to bodybuilding icons he would like to emulate.
“A lot of people who look at my story and dedication say I’m on Chris’ path,” he says, referring to six-time Mr Olympia Classic Physique winner Chris Bumstead, who also happens to be the most popular bodybuilder in the world.
“I can say that in the field of bodybuilding, Bumstead is a role model and an inspiration for me,” the teenager adds, noting that he has been following the champion’s content for a long time before embarking on his own journey into bodybuilding and content creation began.
“Bumstead is an individual unrivaled in the world in his field and an extraordinary professional. I hope to one day achieve what he has achieved,” Hatem concludes.
For Hatem, finding a gym in Gaza for training is an increasingly difficult task as many buildings have been destroyed by the Israeli army (Mohamed Solaimane/Al Jazeera)
The challenges of pumping iron during war
Being a bodybuilder in Gaza comes with unique challenges.
Surviving the war has meant that Hatem has had to drastically reduce the time he spends on his daily exercise routine from three hours to about 30 minutes.
Due to the severe lack of food that is pressing 1.84 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents According to the UN, Hatem has had to continually push his training to the brink of starvation for days on end. His muscle mass had also decreased for months, with his weight dropping from 58 kg (128 lb) to 53 kg (117 lb), before gradually regaining it.
His tumultuous and repetitive movements have also weighed heavily on him.
Hatem recalls the terrifying day of October 14, 2023, when an Israeli plane bombed a location just 8 meters from his family home with five rockets fired over a three-hour period.
“We faced moments where we were sure we wouldn’t survive,” he says. While they hosted fifty displaced persons from the north during this period, they managed to stay alive.
One of the most painful moments for Hatem was when he returned to find his house destroyed after a trip to nearby Rafah.
“It felt like the world had ended and our chances of returning to normal life were gone. We were hoping to salvage something from our house, but it was all gone,” he said.
He refuses to grieve this loss through his channel. “There are plenty of tragedy stories,” he says. But with a few basic media tools – a cell phone, a small stand – and despite experiencing frequent internet outages that make uploading videos a laborious process, Hatem continues to share his story – a mix of hope and hardship in equal measure.
“I want to show resilience and inspire others who may have more resources than us. My dream is to show them what is possible, even in Gaza.”
In the temporary peace that sometimes follows intense aerial bombardments, Hatem commutes to a gym in the center of Khan Younis, where he can finally train with the right fitness equipment.
“Even when resources are scarce, I still have the will,” he says, lifting rocks and water cans instead of weights.
“I want people to know what we’re going through. But it’s about more than just our suffering – it’s about finding the strength to live.”
Hatem describes his difficult gym journey in Gaza every day and makes contact with many thousands of fans in other countries via social media (Mohamed Solaimane/Al Jazeera)
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