Gaza -
Being highly qualified and digging underground for a living. You are in Gaza, where Israel has not left many opportunities for life, in light of a suffocating siege it has imposed on the small coastal strip for 15 years.
Mahdi Ramadan Shaaban is digging graves for the dead in the ground, looking for an opportunity to live above it, after the world narrowed him down, and he was unable to get a job opportunity he desired as a teacher of the Arabic language, in which he holds a master's degree.
Mahdi holds a master's degree and works as a grave digger to help his father provide for the needs of the family of 7 (Al-Jazeera)
Gravedigger
"The world is building to develop its life... and we (us) in Gaza, our lives are destroyed above the ground, and we are digging within it to search for our stolen lives."
Mahdi, born in 1993, works with his father and younger brother Muhammad as they undertake to dig graves in the Al-Faluja cemetery in Jabalia refugee camp, the most populous in the Gaza Strip.
Mahdi tells Al Jazeera Net, "For 5 years I have been working in this profession to help my father provide for the needs of our family of 7."
Mahdi receives about 20 shekels (about 6 dollars) in return for a single grave, and said, "For four days, I have not sold a grave and not a single shekel has entered my pocket."
The tomb costs about 350 shekels to dig and prepare it, and it goes as a price for building materials, and a little of it is left for the diggers.
Excavation of graves in Gaza is done - and talking to Mahdi - either at the request of the deceased's relatives, who specify a place of their choice next to the graves of their loved ones, or by pre-processing, where graves are dug and prepared, and then sold.
Mahdi believes that national unity represents a gateway to the demise of occupation and deliverance from suffering and pain (Al-Jazeera)
A dream outside the cemetery
Mahdi went to accompany his father in the profession of digging graves of his own free will, but he remained - according to his description - feeling "inside a cage", not out of inferiority or ashamed of this profession, which he says "spent on us all our lives", but because he had a dream of working in classrooms , not among the tombstones.
During his work in digging graves, Mahdi joined a master’s program at Al-Aqsa University in Gaza City, and completed his studies in a specialization in Arabic and linguistics (linguistics), but the university has still withheld his degree since last year for not being able to pay the remaining fees estimated at 540 Jordanian dinars ( about $760).
Because of this, Mahdi likens himself to a bird in a cage, unable to fly, and in addition to the scarcity of jobs in Gaza, he is unable to just search for a job, or apply for scholarships to obtain a doctorate degree, which he dreamed of since childhood.
"I feel myself as a bird without wings, because I am unable to pay the tuition fees and obtain my degree to complete the path towards my dream, change my reality, raise my family, and create a better life," he said.
Mahdi receives less than $ 5 for digging and preparing a single grave (Al-Jazeera)
Nakba and Nakba
Mahdi comes from a family that was forced in 1948 to migrate to its village of “Al-Jiyah” inside occupied Palestine, and seek refuge in the Gaza Strip.
Mahdi's family lives in a small house that does not exceed 150 square meters in the town of Beit Lahia (northern Gaza Strip), and it was damaged during previous Israeli wars.
Mahdi says, "As we live the 74th anniversary of the Nakba, other calamities are going through us in Gaza, all of which are due to the occupation, including wars, attacks and sieges, destroying our lives and turning them into an unbearable hell."
Mahdi, who is about to reach his thirties without marriage, strives not to fall prey to despair, occupies himself in volunteer initiatives, and provides assistance to students in scientific research and language proofreading, as well as participating in language conferences and publishing research papers in specialized sites.
Data from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (an official institution) show that the unemployment rate among university graduates in various disciplines reached 78% in Gaza during 2020, compared to 35% in the West Bank.
According to a statement published by the device on its official website last July on “the field of study and its relationship to the labor market,” Palestinian higher education institutions graduated in 2019 more than 42,000 students in various fields, while the local labor market accommodated only 8,000 graduates. annually.
Mahdi - who almost lost his life in an Israeli bombing of the Falluja cemetery in one of the wars on Gaza - believes that the gateway to salvation from problems and daily suffering begins with national unity and the demise of the occupation.