A day-by-day account of life in Gaza since the 7 October attacks, written by Palestinian Authority minister of culture Atef Abu Saif, will be published next month.
Comma Press will release the book, titled Don’t Look Left: A Diary of Genocide, in English on or around 8 February. An early version, covering the first 60 days since 7 October, was released as an ebook on Boxing Day, while Abu Saif was living in a tent in Rafah. The physical version will cover 85 days of the Israel-Gaza war.
Abu Saif is originally from Jabalia Camp, located north of Gaza city, but moved to the West Bank in 2019 when he became a minister. He was visiting Gaza with his 15-year-old son, Yasser, when Hamas launched its surprise attack on Israel, killing approximately 1,200 people and taking more than 240 hostages. Israel then declared war, launching air strikes and a ground attack, and more than 23,350 Palestinian people have been killed since 7 October. By the end of 2023, nearly 85% of the population of Gaza were estimated to be displaced.
Many of Abu Saif’s diary entries were written as WhatsApp messages and voice memos to his publisher. The book follows Abu Saif as he is “reduced to running through the streets looking for shelter, like so many other Gazans, after the hotel he was staying in was bombed”, said Comma Press.
Abu Saif has written six novels and previously published a war diary, The Drone Eats With Me, about the 2014 Gaza war, which lasted 50 days and resulted in the deaths of 2,251 Palestinians. Extracts from his latest diaries have been published by the Guardian along with other outlets.
Comma Press said: “The accounts cover everything from first-hand reports of shockingly graphic rescue efforts – many involving close relatives or fellow journalists and writers – to living in UN shelters in schools, to being displaced multiple times, struggling to find food and maintain contact with the outside world, to the decision to leave his father in the north for his own son’s safety, as well as living for over a month in a tent, an impromptu refugee camp in a UN storage facility near Rafah.”
All proceeds from sales of the book will go to four Palestinian charities: Medical Aid for Palestinians, the Middle East Children’s Alliance, Afaq Shadida/New Horizons Children’s Centre (Nuseirat Refugee Camp) and Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign (Khan Younis Emergency Relief).
