GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Report by Nesma Al-Harazin
In a place where war has destroyed factories, closed businesses and upended livelihoods, some people are choosing to begin again — not from zero, but from what remains beneath the rubble.
For some, rebuilding starts with a handful of sewing machines salvaged from a destroyed factory. For others, it begins in a small home kitchen with flour, spices and a phone used to take orders.
Rafiq Al-Harazeen and his wife, Umm Ahmad, are trying to revive a tailoring business that once employed more than 30 people. Islam Al-Khaldi and her husband, Mohammad Al-Akhras, are rebuilding a home-based food business that grew out of Islam’s cooking and their shared experience in media.
Their stories are different, but the message is much the same: In Gaza, work has become more than a way to earn money. For many families, it is a way to preserve independence, dignity and a sense of normal life.
50 Machines Beneath the Rubble
On the balcony of a rented home in Gaza City’s Al-Sabra neighborhood, Haj Rafiq Al-Harazeen, known as Abu Ahmad, stands beside his wife.
The couple was displaced from Al-Shuja'iyya, where their family had built a life around a tailoring factory. Fifty sewing machines remain buried beneath the ruins of the factory, which once employed more than 30 workers who arrived each morning and left at the end of the day with their wages.
The factory had been more than a workplace. Its machines once filled the space with a steady hum, while Umm Ahmad checked measurements, inspected fabrics and helped make decisions before finished clothes reached the market.
Rafiq spent 13 years working for a company in the Gulf before returning to Gaza in 1995 with his wife and their six children. He wanted to build a business that could provide stability for his family.
The idea came partly from watching one of his brothers work in tailoring. Rafiq bought sewing machines and equipment and opened a workshop with him. Eventually, the brothers went their separate ways and operated their own businesses.
Rafiq’s factory grew gradually. He worked alongside his employees, repaired machines himself and taught new workers how to operate them. Umm Ahmad was involved in the business as well, inspecting finished clothes and advising on the work.
Their children also grew up around the factory, helping after school.
Over the years, the number of workers rose above 30. The factory became a source of income for Rafiq’s family and dozens of other households.
They called it their “second home.”
Then the war shut its doors.
“When the war on Gaza started, everything was being bombed,” Rafiq said quietly. “I had to leave it. I left my whole life in there.”
The family was first displaced to Nuseirat and later to Rafah. There, they saw people improvising ways to make clothes from bed sheets and old garments as prices soared and basic sewing supplies became difficult to find.
“There were days during our displacement to Rafah when we couldn’t find a single needle for sewing,” Umm Ahmad said. “And we couldn’t buy a machine either. We were sewing by hand.”
During the first truce in January 2025, the family returned to Gaza City.
What they found was the remains of their factory.
Some machines and equipment had been damaged. Fifty sewing machines remained buried under the rubble.
Rafiq stood for a long time outside the destroyed building, looking at the place where he had spent years building his livelihood. Umm Ahmad stood beside him.
There was another loss that was harder to comprehend.
Their son, Saif, went missing after crossing a checkpoint following the first Israeli military raid on Al-Shifa Hospital. His family has not learned what happened to him.
His absence remains part of their daily lives.
“Every time I turn on a machine, I imagine Saif standing next to me,” Umm Ahmad said.
Still, the couple tried again.
They resumed work inside their home in Al-Shuja'iyya, repairing the machines that could still be salvaged. A few former workers returned.
“For a moment, the factory felt like it was coming back,” Umm Ahmad said. “We felt like the world was coming back too.”
Then the bombing resumed.
More of the equipment they had managed to restore was damaged. The family left again, this time for Al-Sabra, taking about six machines with them.
They hoped they would soon be able to return.
“I heard on the news that in two days everything would be back to normal,” Rafiq said.
“I could still smell Saif in Gaza,” Umm Ahmad added. “That’s why we stayed.”
The couple began buying equipment again and set up a small workshop with limited resources.
A narrow room. Dim light. Six sewing machines.
“Today my workshop is in Al-Sabra,” Rafiq said. “It’s nothing like my old factory.”
But the workshop has become more than a place to sew. It is an effort to rebuild a livelihood and preserve what remains of a family business.
Their six children, who grew up with the sound of sewing machines around them, have returned to help in different ways. The eldest daughter cuts fabric. A son receives customers. The younger children sort thread and assist with other tasks.
Neighbors began coming not only to have clothes repaired, but also to talk with Rafiq about the days when the larger factory was operating. Some offered to help without payment.
Orders remain limited, and the income is far below what the factory once generated. Yet Rafiq insists on paying a small wage to two workers who returned with him from Al-Shuja'iyya.
“These men fed their families because of me before,” he said. “I can’t abandon them now.”
The workshop needs fabric, raw materials and capital. High prices and shortages have made it difficult for Rafiq to bring back all of his former workers.
Tailoring, he says, is no longer the business it once was. Closed crossings, shortages, destruction and repeated displacement have changed nearly every part of production.
Asked what he finds hardest to forget, Rafiq paused.
“Helplessness,” he said. “That feeling crushes you.”
For him, the factory was never simply a building filled with machines. It was the livelihood of dozens of families.
Umm Ahmad remembers another part of what was lost: seven new sewing machines Rafiq had purchased only months before the war and stored at their home in Al-Shuja'iyya.
“The occupation left us with neither a home nor a job,” she said.Yet the machines that survived are still running.
In the small workshop in Al-Sabra, Rafiq and Umm Ahmad continue to sew.
In Gaza, Resilience Isn’t Measured in Days. It’s Measured in How Many Times You Get Back Up
Aggregated summary from an independent source. Read the original at PNN.