As much of the world celebrates labour and dignity, workers in Gaza face a grim reality: unemployment has soared beyond 50%, driven by months of relentless bombardment and the suffocating blockade that continues to strangle the territory’s economy.

Entire industrial zones lie in ruins. Israeli airstrikes have not only flattened factories and workshops, but also targeted the very spaces where workers once gathered in hope of a day’s wage. The few remaining jobs have become a matter of life and death in a place where the economy is collapsing under the weight of destruction and isolation.

The targeting of vital infrastructure—electricity, water, hospitals—has left little room for recovery. Workplaces cannot operate without power, and labourers cannot survive without access to basic health services. Gaza’s workers, once the backbone of its struggling economy, now find themselves unable to feed their families or rebuild their shattered lives.

On International Workers’ Day, Palestinians in Gaza do not celebrate—they endure. Yet amid the devastation, they continue to show a quiet resilience. Their call to the world is clear: to recognise the right to work as a human right, to end the blockade, and to support efforts to rebuild a future where dignity and labour are not dreams but realities.