Growing up in Gaza, I learned that to be a man, I had to silence my tears, hide my trembles, and choke down my pain. But how am I supposed to hold it all in when everything around me has collapsed?
I entered manhood under bombardment, in a world that rarely considers the lives of people like me to be deserving of protection or even mourning. The ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza has not only stolen the lives of our family members and neighbors, but also systematically dismantled and reshaped our sense of identity, community, and personhood.
From a young age, I learned that as a man I would need to protect, provide, and remain steadfast no matter the circumstances. But early on, I recognized that this task would be totally different for me than for many other boys around the world.
I was 9 the first time I survived an airstrike. I was on my way to school when a bomb tore through the street that my classmates and I were walking on. When the ash and dust cleared, I ran home past my classmates — some of them already dead, others screaming, missing limbs.
When I finally arrived home, everyone in my family was crying. I distinctly remember looking at my trembling mother and saying something far too big for a child to say: “Mum, I’m a man. No one should cry over me.” With a certainty only a child is capable of, I added: “I know how to escape death.”
Since that moment, I’ve survived more than 10 attacks. But now, at the age of 26, and nearly two years into this genocide, I’ve come to realize that the stoicism and steadfastness required of Palestinian men is near impossible.
Palestinians mourn the death of those killed in an Israeli airstrike outside the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, September 3, 2024. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)
How can I be a “protector” when fighter jets reduce my home to rubble, hovering drones rob us of sleep, and forced displacement becomes the only guarantee? How can I “provide” when Israel’s 18-year blockade has decimated our economy, its intensified siege continues to starve us, and approaching an aid truck means risking death?
***
I lost my brother, Nour, in this chaos. He was a police officer dedicated to keeping civilians safe. He vanished during Israel’s bombing of Khan Younis. My family still doesn’t know what happened to him.
In Gazan culture, our sense of manhood is tied to responsibility for family. Nour’s absence didn’t just break our hearts; it fractured how I saw myself — as the eldest brother, the guide, the protector. But as a man, responsible for feeding my 10 siblings, I haven’t had the time to even begin to process that pain.
One day, as I walk away from our tent, my youngest sister asks me where Nour is. I can’t lie to her again, but I also can’t destroy what little hope she’s built. I collect pieces of wood and broken metal, pretending it’s for fire or rebuilding, when what I’m really doing is keeping my hands busy so my heart doesn’t burst.
I bury Nour every night in my thoughts, and I raise him again every morning in my memories. I sit by the sea when there’s no shelling — on the edge of Gaza, where the water is free even if we are not — and I let myself cry without making a sound.
That’s how I process the genocide: silently, secretly, in fragments. I can’t scream in front of my mother. I can’t collapse in front of my father. I’m their son, and in their eyes, I’m still their shield — even if inside I feel shattered.
Mohanned, the author’s little brother, poses for a photo as their father covers his face in anguish, October 2024. (Courtesy of the author)
But I’m not alone. The emotional damage endured by Palestinian men is incalculable. A 2022 UN Population Fund report on men in conflict zones warned of “double trauma” — physical and psychological pain compounded by social expectations demanding silence, stoicism, and emotional suppression.
In Gaza, where mental health care is nearly nonexistent and stigma remains high, men internalize everything. World Health Organization data from before the war listed only 0.2 psychiatrists per 100,000 people. The little mental health support we once had is buried in the rubble.
And yet, despite the unimaginable circumstances, I continue to witness the tenderness of men as they support the survival of their families.
“I held my daughter all night after the rain collapsed our tent,” Mahmoud, a father I interviewed in a camp near Rafah, told me. “I’m supposed to be her shield, but I was soaked and helpless.” His voice cracked.
That crack was defiance, not weakness. By letting his voice shake, by letting someone witness his pain, he was rejecting the expectation that Palestinian men must always be stoic. We are beginning to reveal our cracks to each other.
***
Ibrahim Abu Naji, a father of four boys, shared something that struck me to my core: “Being a man in Gaza right now means choosing to stay hungry rather than participating in a scramble for food arriving on aid trucks.”
He was referring to scenes across Gaza in recent months where, due to Israel’s crippling siege, starving crowds of Palestinians rush desperately toward food trucks to grab anything they can. Israel has subsequently exploited these scenes of chaos to justify shutting down all international aid operations in Gaza, before setting up its own aid distribution mechanism that serves as a vehicle for ethnic cleansing.
Prior to October 7, Abu Naji was working in construction in Israel, but since the war began, he has lost any source of income. “My hunger becomes a form of protest,” he told me. “I will not help them destroy what little dignity we have left.”
The author and his uncle, Khalid, a civil engineer, build restrooms for displaced neighbors in Gaza, June 2024. (Courtesy of the author)
In Arabic, the word that more closely describes manhood is not the literal translation, rujula, but karama, or “dignity.” Despite the intentional dehumanization of our people and emasculation of our men, Gaza is birthing a new kind of masculinity: not based on militarism, but on moral clarity and dignity — even in starvation. Despite continued bombardment, we rebuild our tents and our lives over and over again.
In my interviews with other displaced men, new patterns of manhood emerged. “Being a man is about keeping my children calm when they’re terrified of the skies,” Abu Omar, 37, told me. Another explained: “I used to think I had to always be strong. But now I let myself cry, and I let my son see me do it.”
By letting their kids see their hurt, fear, and softness, fathers are demonstrating real strength. Our tears are not a sign of weakness, but an act of rebellion in a world trying to crush our humanity. Our emotions and our unwillingness to become numb to this pain are a form of resistance.
These moments expose something rarely seen in international coverage: beneath the images of militants or rubble-dusted victims are men caught between genocide and the burden of upholding an inherited understanding of manhood. The global media often flattens Palestinian men into archetypes — threats or statistics — stripping us of our complexity and humanity.
Yet in the ruins, something else is taking shape.
***
In Gaza today, a different masculinity is emerging — one that embraces vulnerability, caregiving, and tenderness. Men are cooking meals in crowded shelters, comforting children, crying openly while clutching the lifeless bodies of their grandchildren, and telling stories of grief.
Palestinians mourn the death of those killed in an Israeli airstrike outside the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, September 24, 2024. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)
We are beginning to name our traumas out loud. And this transformation isn’t apolitical; it’s an act of defiance.
Despite our pain, men still carry the burden of taking risks, running through airstrikes to get water or food, because it’s too dangerous for women or children to do so. But now, being a man isn’t only about being tough; it’s about being present. Being the guy who cries and still risks his life for basic necessities — who carries both the water and the grief.
That’s the new manhood we’re building here. One that’s not just about survival, but about staying human. Men who weep in public, who change diapers in tents, who share grief with strangers — these men are forging a new kind of masculinity, one that rejects domination and embraces care.
Rebuilding our shattered identities will take generations. But reclaiming what it means to be a man — gentle, broken, healing, and still standing — is a beginning.
Palestinian men deserve to be seen not as militants or shadows, but as whole people with fragile hearts and impossible burdens. Ending the occupation isn’t just about returning land; it’s about restoring dignity. That means rebuilding homes, repairing what has broken inside us, and reimagining how to show up for ourselves and one another.