The Death of Opportunity – What Youth Empowerment Means in Gaza
Blogpost written by Hassan Abo Qamar - Gaza, Palestine.
In most countries around the world, discussions about youth empowerment revolve around believing in young people’s leadership, expanding access to opportunities, and building a stable future. But in Gaza, this concept has completely collapsed. During the genocide–amid siege, bombardment, and famine–empowerment no longer meant leadership, work, or education; for many of us, it simply meant surviving one more day.
Before the Genocide: Life Was Never Easy.
When I was a child, like many Gazans, my favorite place was the sea, where I grew up drinking tea on its sand. I loved watching the sunset, when the sun kissed the water just as I had imagined; that blend filled me with an excitement unlike anything else–especially the mystery of what lay beyond that scene, beyond the sea. At that age, I didn’t understand much about Gaza’s reality, nor did I have any real chance to comprehend it. I thought traveling was easy, influenced by my grandmother, “Kimo,” who used to move between Arab countries with my grandfather in the 1990s for work.
But as I grew older, I watched my older brother–who spent four exhausting years studying medical laboratory science–work as a driver just to earn a little money that barely fed him, instead of building a stable life. I watched Kamel, our family friend who couldn’t finish his studies because his family couldn’t afford it, attempt illegal immigration–leaving Gaza for Turkey and then swimming to Greece just to reach Europe.
I realized Gaza was different. Life was nothing like my grandmother’s stories or what TV series and films portray. There was no easy money; in Gaza, work itself was a privilege, not a right. And travel was not simple–most countries didn’t even acknowledge our existence rather than welcome us.
Over time, as the same stories repeated around me, I understood: my brother couldn’t find work because thousands of graduates in the same field had no jobs. Many were doing daily labor, manual work, or learning freelancing skills. And Kamel risked his life in early 2023 because his only chance to build a new life was to gamble with his own. Especially that his family needed treatment for his father–who later died during the war due to the lack of medicine in hospitals.
None of this was random. It was deliberate as the expected result of one thing I grew up with since childhood: the Israeli siege imposed in 2006.
In early 2023, when I turned sixteen, my fear of falling into the same unemployment trap that haunts most youth pushed me into my first real work experience even though I was too young. I opened a small shop selling funny-patterned socks called Socks Store with my friend Yousef, who had the same motivation after seeing his lawyer brother work as a day laborer (as a painter) to support the family. Our families saw our project as an attempt to break the cycle and supported us despite their limited means. We contacted a factory in Egypt and bought 180 pairs of socks. To solve the import issue, a friend of Youssef’s father brought them back with him from a medical treatment trip to Egypt. Our capital was only 100 dollars, which we borrowed from our families. We felt the weight of responsibility: the project’s success meant we could repay them–which was a lot for two teenagers.
All of these attempts and fears–shared by Gazans who worried about being unemployed for the rest of their lives–were just months before the genocide. And ironically, despite all the suffering before it, Gazans now look back on that period, with all its difficulties, as the “good days.” Overnight, Israel destroyed those fragile opportunities. Daily work stopped. Even the few young people who had found chances–whether through local organizations or online–were dealt a fatal blow, as most aspects of life came to a halt due to the dangers of war. Electricity cuts and collapsed communication networks made freelancing impossible.
Even our dreams and our first experience as teenagers–our small sock project–were forced to fail. It had just begun to succeed: we sold our first batch, raised our capital to 200 dollars, and reached our first thousand Instagram followers. Then it all stopped entirely. Displacement, movement restrictions, and blocked roads made deliveries impossible. I still remember how I used to meet Yousef every day, discussing new products and creative marketing ideas we wanted to develop and work on as soon as things calmed down, believing it was only a matter of days before the world would stop the genocide.
Weeks later, Israel ordered the evacuation of the building where Yousef’s family lived before bombing it. That forced his family to make the hardest decision of their lives: fleeing to Egypt to escape death, despite having spent their entire lives in Gaza–even though they held Egyptian citizenship. Yousef and I were forced to separate, with the only thing still in common between us being our shared dream of going beyond the sea and having the ability to pursue our ambitions.
The war continued, and day by day it became even harsher. All the borders were under Israeli control, and no one could flee to Egypt anymore, and even humanitarian aid was restricted. And just like that, every path closed before me as a young man in Gaza: no partner for the journey, no supportive circumstances, and not even the last hope–the small project–could continue.
During those days, I convinced myself that failure was written for me simply because I was born Palestinian. Surrender felt easier–letting go of everything and blaming fate. But one session by the sea–the same sea I once promised myself to cross one day–brought back a spark. I realized that depression and waiting for death in the form of a missile that sees every Palestinian as a potential target was not a solution, and that Palestinians more than any other people carry a responsibility to succeed and to live, honoring the souls of our friends and liberating our country, which killed them and never wanted life for us since occupying our land.
As time passed, I began learning new skills online, starting with journalism. I started writing with Palestinian organizations like We Are Not Numbers, defending my people's rights and documenting our reality through my articles. I also volunteered in youth initiatives like SDF, whose primary goal had once been youth empowerment but has now shifted entirely to emergency response. This work brought me into closer contact with people in much more difficult situations–widows fighting to feed their children, young kids who had become orphans, and other heartbreaking stories. The one thing they all had in common was that they kept fighting back against this harsh life, trying to move forward.
The more I saw my people, the more I became convinced that life cannot be lived by crying over circumstances you did not choose. My commitment to my people–who loved life and held onto it despite everything–grew even stronger.
The sixteen-year-old child became a nineteen-year-old who knows all his rights–none of which he has received, not even the simplest: food and medicine. And even though the “Trump Plan” declared the genocide over, the truth is that only some of its visible aspects have ended. Israel still bombs whenever it wants. The crossings are still close to food and medicine. Patients still die in their beds. And there is no real attempt to change Gaza’s reality or rebuild it–only a normalization of the idea that this is the “new normal.” Even the media no longer pays attention.
Genocide does not end unless life begins. It ends when we gain all our rights, like any citizen in any country. We Gazans do not ask to be seen as victims or objects of pity. We ask that our skills be invested in, that the siege be lifted, and that Gaza becomes the Riviera of the Middle East–for its residents, not through our displacement.
And until that day comes, we as Gazans will keep moving forward to rebuild our home. I will keep moving forward as well–to speak for and fight on behalf of the thousands of Gazans who keep striving despite everything, who are forced to be the best just to obtain the simplest of rights and opportunities, knowing that our painful story will never excuse our delays. Whether I remain in Gaza or one day reach beyond the sea, my dream become: that every young person here has a fair chance to know their rights, to claim them, and to grow into the youth of a city defined not by war, nor by risking their lives like Kamel did, nor by working far from their fields of study, but by opportunity, dignity, and love.
Thumbnail Photo credit: ICJ