‘Gym Rat in Gaza’: Bodybuilder Mohamed Hatem overcomes adversity amid war
Al Jazeera
Exercising in Gaza presents unique challenges, but one resident copes with the catastrophe of war by working out whenever and wherever he can.
As the skies over Gaza rumble with the sound of distant explosions, Mohamed Hatem’s grip tightens on the frame of a cracked wall outside a wrecked building.
He’s there to do more muscle-ups, one of the most exhausting and difficult gym exercises imaginable because you have to repeatedly lift your entire body weight above a gymnastic bar.
Hatem, 19, doesn’t have the luxury of a bar – only an unforgiving concrete wedge that can shred your hands in moments if you are 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 while I exercise,” he tells Al Jazeera. “It’s as if I were outside of Gaza entirely. This is the feeling that takes me over when I practise bodybuilding.”
Over more than a year of Israeli shelling, air strikes and ground attacks that have killed more than 44,000 people and are starving many of those who survive, the young man has taken to bodybuilding to help him cope with the unfathomable stress of living in a warzone.
