Bodybuilders in Gaza are fighting to maintain muscles in the Israeli siege and famine Israeli conflict news

Masas, Gaza Strip The sweat flows to the bottom of the face of Tareq Abu Youssef, and it is struggling through the exercise of the gym on temporary bodybuilding equipment, every movement is too much too much.

The 23-year-old intentionally retains his training sessions, a painful decrease in the intense routine that he loved one day-but in an area where almost everyone is presenting, maintaining muscle mass has become a work of survival and resistance.

Abu Yusef said, in reference to when Israel tightened its siege by closing the border crossings and restricting them strongly. “But if eating becomes anomaly in Gaza, the exercise of bodybuilders like us is one of us is one of the rare ways to preserve normal life,” he says to the island forces.

His story reflects a broader humanitarian catastrophe: through 2.1 million square kilometers in Gaza, 2.1 million Palestinians face what relief agencies describe as deliberate hunger and weapons.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCA) states that all residents all face “catastrophic” levels of food insecurity, as Northern Gaza suffers from famine conditions. Doctors without borders, known as the first letters of doctors without borders, documented severe malnutrition cases throughout the tape, describing the crisis as “man -made” and was deliberately imposed. The World Food Program warns that without immediate intervention, famine will spread throughout Gaza, while millions of tons of aid are parked in the border crossings filled with Israel.

Even when the aid trucks managed to enter through the intended Israeli crossings, the distribution of foodstuffs and other basic elements remains almost impossible due to the continuous military operations and the widespread destruction of the infrastructure.

During the rest of Abu Youssef, which extends between machines – now five times longer than before the famine of Gaza began – his hands run on his chest, arms and shoulders, and he feels the loss of devastating muscles that reflects the physical deterioration of the entire population.

“The hunger has completely affected my ability to exercise my favorite bodybuilding.” “I now came to training one day, sometimes two days, per week. Before the war, it was from five to six days. I also reduced the training time to less than half an hour, which is less than half the time required.”

Where it was once compressed from 90 to 100 kg (200-220 lb), Abu Yusuf barely ran 40 kilograms (90 pounds)-a decrease that may be related to any athlete, but he is destroyed in a context in which this physical deterioration becomes the standard across society.

A gym between refugees

A temporary facility where Abu Yusuf trains are located inside a tent in Maoas, and it is now a home of nearly a million displaced Palestinians who live in overcrowded and unhealthy conditions. Here, amid the sprawling refugee camps, the coach Adly created an unlikely refuge, using the equipment rescued from the destroyed gym in Khan Yunis.

Al-Asar, the 55-year-old international champion, who won six gold medals in an Arab championship in 2020-2021, managed to save only 10 pieces of equipment from more than 30 years when the Israeli forces bombed his original facility. The gymnasium covers the tent barely 60 square meters (650 square feet), and plastic covers extend to two levels that are not level of the ground, surrounded by refugee tents and sporadic trees.

“During this imposed starvation, everything changed,” Al -Asar explains, that the weight of his body has decreased 11 kg from 78 kg to 67 kg. “The athletes lost between 10 to 15 kilograms and lost their weightlifting. It was a shoulder muscle 40 cm, and now it became less than 35, and all other muscles have suffered from the same loss.”

Before the current crisis, the gym welcomed more than 200 athletes per day through all ages. Now, 10 percent of training can hardly, twice or only twice.

One of these ordinary visitors to the temporary gym is Ali Al -Azra, 20 years old, who is displaced from central Gaza during the first weeks of the war. Its weight decreased from 79 kg to 68 kg – almost completely muscle loss. His journalistic capacity for the bench decreased from 100 kg to only 30 kg, the back ascends from 150 kg to 60 kg, and the shoulder made from 45 kg to 15 kg.

“The largest part of the loss occurred during the current hunger period, which started months ago and intensified last month,” says Azraq. “In fact, I find nothing to eat except rarely a piece of bread, rice or pasta in small quantities that keep me alive. But we completely lack all essential nutrients and important proteins – meat, chicken, healthy oils, eggs, fish, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and others.”

The unemployed young man was hoping to compete in the official Palestinian arm tournaments before he advanced internationally. Instead, the current hunger describes as “the harshest thing we are witnessing as a conqueror, but the athletes like us are the most affected because we need large amounts of specific food, not normal.”

Training through shock

However, for these athletes, the gym is more than physical training – it’s psychological survival. Khaled Al -Bahbisa, 29, who returned to training two months ago after being injured in the Israeli bombing on April 19, still carrying shrapnel in his chest and body.

“Sports give life and psychological comfort. We were closer to the dead even though we were alive,” Al -Bahisa says. “But when I went back to a training (gym), I felt that I was closer to living than the dead, and the nightmares of genocide and hunger retreated a little.”

He was shocked to discover the gym between tents and trees. ))

22 months of uncompromising bombing by the Israeli army killed more than 62,000 people, according to the Ministry of Health in the pocket, demolished large parts of the besieged lands, and explained the vast majority of its people. They are alive to survive in terrible human circumstances in the absence of food.

Al -Asar adapted his training methods for the circumstances of famine, and guided the athletes accurately to reduce training and avoid excessive leave. The rest periods between groups now extend to five minutes instead of 30 seconds to one minute. Training sessions are crowned in 30 minutes, and athletes do not raise more than half of the pre -oral weights.

“The recommendations are strict to shorten the training duration and increase the rest periods,” warns part. “We live in a deadly hunger crisis, and training may stop completely if the conditions continue in this way.”

On a daily basis, athletes suffer from complications, including collapse, fainting, and inability to move. “We are in a real famine that we do not eat. We get nutrition from all essential and useful foods-no animal protein, no healthy oils, nothing. We get a small amount that does not satisfy the three-year-old vegetable protein, while other foods are completely absent.”

But bodybuilders continue to work anyway.

Even when the Israeli air attacks fell a few meters away from the gym, the athletes continued to appear. “I am hungry all the time and calculate my training day in the week – how will I turn my food after that?” Abu Youssef, the street salesman who was once looking to compete in the Bodybuilding Championship at the Gaza level, has been set for two weeks after the start of the war in October 2023.

Youssef, who was enthusiastic about the opportunity to compete and was in full training for the championship, destroyed his dream when “I turned everything upside down.” Now, a few loaves of bread that he runs from buying from his weekly profits hardly fill him.

“Despite this, I did not lose hope and train again to restore my capabilities, even if they are limited and slow, but famine frustrates all these attempts,” he says.

As for the Bahisa, the displaced from his shelf with his family, access to the training site is the hope of restoring life in general, not just physical fitness.

“We aspire to live like the rest of the people of the world. We only want peace and life and we hate the war and the Israeli occupation that exterminates us and hungry. We have the right to exercise, participate in international competitions, reach advanced levels, and represent Palestine.”

The gym, despite its restrictions, works as what Asar calls a challenge to “the reality of genocide, destruction and displacement.”

He put it: “The idea here is deeper than just training. We are looking for the life that we want to live with safety and calmness. Gaza and its people will continue their lives regardless of genocide against them. Sports is one of the aspects of this life.”

This piece was published in cooperation with egab.