Masculinity, Care, and the Collapsed Adolescence of Gaza’s Young Men

Abstract

This manuscript explores how the long-lasting conflict in Gaza has reshaped pathways into manhood and forced male adolescents and young men into premature adulthood. This paper presents two publicly verifiable cases and one anonymized, generalized case that together demonstrate the responsibilities and gendered expectations placed on young men within this context. Drawing on these cases, this paper demonstrates that young men in Gaza have been forced to adopt caregiving roles traditionally associated with older adults, while navigating their own displacement, trauma, and disrupted developmental trajectories. Generation Z in Gaza is the fifth generation to live under continuous conflict. The forced assumption of mature social roles by children, adolescents, and young adults during war constitutes a global public health concern. This responsibility shift often occurs when parents are absent or incapacitated, a dynamic especially evident among boys and young men in Gaza. The ongoing siege and conflict in Gaza have accelerated the adultification of Gen Z males, underscoring the need for culturally appropriate, trauma-informed, and gender-specific interventions. By pairing these lived experiences with peer-reviewed scholarship, humanitarian data, websites, and publicly available media sources, this paper contributes to the ongoing discussion on socially constructed masculinity under conflict, resilience, and the structural, political, and economic determinants of young male health in Gaza, Palestine.