Atef Abu Saif has been Palestinian Authority’s minister of culture since 2019 and is the author of six novels. He was visiting Gaza with his son, Yasser, when Israel started bombarding the strip in response to Hamas’s 7 October attacks on Israel. He has been keeping a diary, which he has been sending via WhatsApp to his publisher, Comma Press, in Britain. This is an edited excerpt.
Sunday 29 October