Gaza bodybuilders fight to preserve muscle amid Israel blockade and famine
Sweat streams down Tareq Abu Youssef’s face as he struggles through his gym workout on makeshift bodybuilding equipment, each movement more laboured than it should be.
The 23-year-old Palestinian deliberately keeps his training sessions minimal, a painful reduction from the intensive routines he once loved – but in a territory where nearly everyone is starving, maintaining muscle mass has become an act of survival and resistance.“I have dropped 14 kilograms, from 72kg to 58kg (159lb to 128lb), since March,” Abu Youssef said, referring to when Israel tightened its siege by closing border crossings and severely restricting food deliveries. “But if eating has become an abnormality in Gaza, working out for bodybuilders like us is one rare way to maintain normalcy,” he tells Al Jazeera.
His story reflects a broader humanitarian catastrophe: Across Gaza’s 365 square kilometres, 2.1 million Palestinians face what aid agencies describe as deliberate, weaponised hunger.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that virtually the entire population faces “catastrophic” levels of food insecurity, with northern Gaza experiencing famine conditions. Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, has documented severe acute malnutrition cases throughout the Strip, describing the crisis as “man-made” and deliberately imposed. The World Food Programme warns that without immediate intervention, famine will spread across all of Gaza, while millions of tonnes of aid are parked at Israel-locked border crossings.Even when aid trucks manage to enter through Israel’s heavily restricted crossings, distribution of food and other essential items remains nearly impossible due to ongoing military operations and widespread destruction of infrastructure.
During Abu Youssef’s extended rest breaks in between machines – now five times longer than before Gaza’s famine began – he runs his hands over his chest, arms, and shoulders, feeling the devastating muscle loss that mirrors the physical deterioration of an entire population.
“Starvation has completely affected my ability to practice my favourite sport of bodybuilding,” Abu Youssef says in a tent gym in al-Mawasi, located in Gaza’s overcrowded southern “safe zone”. “I now come to train one day, sometimes two days, a week. Before the war, it was five to six days. I’ve also reduced my training time to less than half an hour, which is less than half the required time.”
Where he once bench-pressed 90-100kg (200-220lb), Abu Youssef now barely manages 40kg (90lb) – a decline that would be concerning for any athlete but devastating in a context where such physical deterioration is becoming the norm across an entire society.
