Seeing him, it would be hard to even imagine the violence he experienced firsthand. Yes, because Atef Abu Saif, writer and former Palestinian culture minister, keeps an affable smile on his face, while with a warm voice he captures the large audience who have come to Lamezia Terme to listen to him. The occasion was the presentation of his book, «Diary of a genocide. 60 days under the bombs in Gaza” (Offstage), a touching story that gives voice to ordinary people, to the hundreds of thousands of Gazans tormented since the very first two months of the Israeli offensive following the Hamas massacre of 7 October.
Fifty-two years old, originally from the Jabalia refugee camp in the Strip, Atef Abu Saif is already a prolific author, with ten novels to his credit, including “Vita Hanging” (finalist for the Arabia International Literature Prize 2015 and recently translated into Italy for Polidoro). A reverential respect for memory, which shines through in his story, «because all the people who survived after the Nakba have the ability to tell the memories of the past. I grew up immersed in these stories, my grandmother was 50 years old when she was forced to leave her city and I wrote down everything she told me. I dreamed of writing about his struggles, his sorrows, but I haven’t managed to do it yet. I am afraid. His life is something sacred. Living in Gaza – he adds – means living with war. When you ask me how to live in war I can’t answer because I’ve never lived without it. So my son, 17 years old, has already lived through 5 wars, he doesn’t know a life without them. Therefore when I write I don’t want to write about war, but about life.”
The meeting, at the Chiostro Caffè Letterario in Lamezia Terme, was born from an idea by Giovanni Orlando Muraca, a teacher from Lamezia who, like «CantinArtaud», deals with contemporary arts and cultures, and with the support of a large network of associations, bodies, activists (more than fifty) from all over Calabria. In the company of Atef Abu Saif, who from 2019 to 2024 was minister and spokesperson for the Fatah party, the journalist Claudio Dionesalvi and Ivana Bevacqua of the Anpi of Catanzaro, both – with many voices from the public – stimulated a debate which then moved from literature to international political current affairs. «The war is not over – reiterates Saif – Trump has brought together the powerful of the earth to be applauded, but we still live in tents, instead of killing a hundred a day they kill ten, perhaps, and therefore we don’t talk about it anymore. Israel is present in 85% of the territory of Gaza, and in the remaining part there is no water, no one has the money to buy food, the food is rotten anyway. You have to be lucky just to have a tent.”
As many as 282 violations of the ceasefire from 10 October 2025 to today, as Dionesalvi recalled before moving the debate to the topic of international protests and initiatives – starting with the Global Sumud Flotilla. «The Palestinians think it’s a joke that a country like Italy still doesn’t recognize Palestine – smiles Saif – because it has always had excellent relations with us. Regarding weapons, it is incomprehensible how you can make money by killing people…”. A precious testimony, which smacks of melancholy but imbued with so much dignity, and with a clear message for Saif: “Israel may occupy our country, but it cannot occupy our minds.”