(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
That's what we're all talking about, and yet there will never be a ceasefire in Gaza. Not even when it is finally signed. For those who are now homeless or without a son, a brother, a father, or their entire family, or have otherwise had their lives ruined, the war continues. Always. The only difference is that the world is no longer watching.
War never ends. Also because the first thing you lose is yourself. Everything you were. In war, no one survives. Neither the dead nor the living.
And especially not in Gaza. Where reconstruction is still ongoing, and the airstrikes are already lighting up the sky again. "Life here is just a timeout between two wars," says Atef Abu Saif. “And what's the point? To rebuild, once again? Seek shelter again, and try to avoid being killed? The toughest night is always the next.”
The bodies would be identified
- October Atef Abu Saif was in Gaza by chance. Five years ago, he was attacked during a demonstration against Hamas. Masked attackers broke 31 of his bones. Skull included. One by one, the fingers of the right hand: The hand he writes with. Since then, Atef Abu Saif, one of the most important contemporary Arab writers, and for a long time Minister of Culture in the Palestinian Authority, has lived in Ramallah. His diary from Gaza, which The Washington Post has printed, is now a bestseller that is translated everywhere (as was the diary from the war in 2014).
How 'asymmetric' must a war become before it is no longer war, asks Atef Abu Saif – before it can be defined as what it is: just slaughter?
The new book is published by Penguin. "But in 2014 I wrote as a writer. As a reporter. The dangerous areas, the areas with military targets, were more or less known. I was never really afraid of dying. This time I wrote as a survivor", he writes: "Because this time it was like being inside a Playstation game. Chased by drones. Who buzzed around you like hungry dogs. And I wrote so quickly: I was afraid of being killed before I submitted my new contribution.”
“And everyone came and asked me: But did you write this? Did you mention it? Everyone added a line, a detail. All would be cited. More than dying, we were terrified of disappearing. As if we had never existed. Children began to write their name on their skin. Or the parents' mobile number. So that if they were hit and killed, they would get a phone call and be informed. Their bodies would be identified. They wanted their story, their life, to be told. Or at least was recorded.”
But how asymmetrical must a war become before it is no longer war? he asks. Before it can be defined as what it is: just slaughter?
Nothing began here on October 7
In Gaza, the Palestinians say that if you have memories of war, you are lucky: It means you made it. Therefore, Atef Abu Saif does not like to be asked: How are you? The question should rather be: How have you been in the last 75 years, he says. Because he was, after all, born in 1973, he was already born in war: like his mother's mother, who was born in a tent, and died in a tent.
Nothing began here on October 7. And in this book, Hamas is never mentioned. Not even once. Neither Hamas, Sinwar nor Netanyahu. The goals, the plans, the strategies: What does it mean in the end, in the face of 40 dead? That is approximately two percent of the population – as if Norway had 000 murdered. This is a book about corpses, many, many corpses strewn about, rotting corpses that have melted into the ground. Corpse that seems to be staring at you, an arm reaching out to you from the window of a burned out car, as if pleading for help, you, just you.
"Don't look to the left," Atef Abu Saif repeats to his son, but it makes little sense: They are everywhere. Because even if you are in the government, you are just as powerless as everyone else. Without water, without bread, without anything. Just rockets, and rockets and rockets. He no longer has a home. Has been bombed along with most of his family. He also has no friends anymore. His father starved to death. In the hospital, he was begged by his niece, who is now only a twenty-year-old weaver, amputated without anesthesia, without even painkillers, for a single medicine: rat poison.
While the TV is on
And now writing is an act of faith. An act of trust. Trust that your pages, and everything you've gone through, won't go to waste. But while the TV is on and broadcasting from Gaza, Atef Abu Saif momentarily imagines a bomb in the room, and the TV, still on, continuing unaffected in the dust and rubble: until it delivers the message of death over the corpse his. "Everyone is worried because the internet is no longer working and there is no news from Gaza," he says. "But until October 6, nobody had any news, and nobody cared."
This is a book about corpses, many, many corpses strewn about, rotting corpses that have melted into the ground.
The UN was the first to flee. At the first air raids. So did the Red Cross. Then the international media. They leave just when they are most needed, he writes: "And we sit here, glued to the radio, to every single news, and listen while the whole world talks about Gaza. Making decisions about Gaza. Without asking any of us to speak.”
