Palestinian youth are risking their lives to clear rubble in Gaza
Abdulrahman and his brother go about demolishing their Gaza home and clearing its rubble
Tareq S. Hajjaj reports in Mondoweiss on 13 August 2026 :
Ahmad Hammad, 16, carries a sledgehammer weighing more than 10 kilograms through the rubble of a bombed-out home in Gaza. He climbs over piles of debris and breaks it into pieces small enough to drag away.
“I want to help my family,” he told Mondoweiss. “I am willing to do any job that provides my family with enough to eat for the day. I don’t care if the working hours are long or the conditions are difficult. Life in Gaza is full of hardships, and we are a part of this life.”
Ahmad lives with his six-member family in a displacement center in Tal al-Hawa, west of Gaza City. He works from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., alongside three other teenagers of similar ages. The homeowner who employs them provides a single lunch at 1 p.m. Nothing else is provided during the workday.
They work directly under the sun, Ahmad says, while dealing with hunger and exhaustion. Yet he feels he has no choice, as he has been unable to find any other work. Ahmad and his colleagues are paid 30 shekels a day ($10).
Since the October 2025 ceasefire and the end of the mass-displacement waves that followed, Palestinians like Ahmad have increasingly begun clearing the rubble of homes by hand, as reconstruction remains delayed and heavy machinery to clear the debris is scarce.