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Atef Abu Saif’s chilling, evocative stories of Gaza onslaught
Pam Bailey The Electronic Intifada 17 June 2015The Drone Eats With Me: Diaries from a City Under Fire by Atef Abu Saif (Comma Press)
The 51-day Israeli war on Gaza may be old news to those who follow the Middle East. What news junkies know are the numbers — at least 2,205 Palestinians killed, including 538 children; 11,000 wounded; up to 500,000 residents displaced; more than 20,000 homes destroyed. What they don’t have are the intimate, granular insights that you get only by living through it — or, reading the diary of someone who has, and is also an eloquent, evocative writer.
For instance, do you know how to tell the difference between a missile from a ship, a tank, an F-16 or a drone, by their sound alone? How to prepare your windows when shelling is expected, and where it is safest to sleep? Or what happens to your sense of time in the midst of war?
The Drone Eats With Me: Diaries from a City Under Fire, by Atef Abu Saif, is just such a book.
(What does a drone sound like? In one passage, Abu Saif describes it, while also giving the book its title: “As the noise of the explosion subsides, it’s replaced by the inevitable whir of a drone, sounding so close it could be right beside us. It’s like it wants to join us for the evening, and has pulled up a chair.”)https://electronicintifada.net/content/atef-abu-saifs-chilling-evocative-stories-gaza-onslaught/14557
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