Refaat Alareer
 Refaat Alareer    (writer, poet, professor, activist) | |
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| Born | 23 September 1979 |
| Died | 6 December 2023 (Age 44) |
| Alma mater | Islamic University of Gaza, University College London, Universiti Putra Malaysia |
Refaat Alareer was a Palestinian writer, poet, professor, and activist from the Gaza Strip.
Refaat Alareer was born in Gaza City in 1979 during the Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip, which he said had negatively influenced every move and decision he made. In December 2023 he was targeted in an Israeli airstrike and killed along with six family members.
Background
Refaat Alareer earned a BA in English in 2001 from the Islamic University of Gaza and an MA from University College London in 2007. He earned a PhD in English Literature at the Universiti Putra Malaysia in 2017 with a dissertation on John Donne.
He taught literature and creative writing at the Islamic University of Gaza and co-founded the organisation We Are Not Numbers, which matched experienced authors with young writers in Gaza, and promoted the power of storytelling as a means of Palestinian resistance against the Israeli occupation.
Israel critic
Refaat Alareer was sharply critical of Israel. He described the attack by Hamas on 7 October 2023 as "legitimate and moral" and said it was "exactly like the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising." He also rejected allegations of Hamas engaging in sexual violence during the 10-7 attack as lies used to "justify the Gaza genocide." In response to the claim, since debunked, that Hamas had killed a baby by placing it in an oven, Alareer jokingly responded "with or without baking powder" on Twitter, which subsequently provoked a backlash.
Israeli target
On 6 December 2023, during the 2023-2024 Israel-Hamas War, Refaat Alareer was killed in an Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza, along with his brother, brother's son, sister, and her three children. The Euro-Med Monitor released a statement saying that Alareer was apparently deliberately targeted, "surgically bombed out of the entire building", and came after weeks of "death threats that Refaat received online and by phone from Israeli accounts."[1]
In his last interview before being killed, with the sound of Israeli bombs exploding in the background, Refaat Alareer said Gazans felt helpless and that, while he had no weapons, he would defend himself if the Israeli army were to come to his house:
- "I am an academic. Probably the toughest thing I have at home is an Expo marker. But if the Israelis invade, if they barge at us, charge at us open door-to-door to massacre us, I am going to use that marker to throw it at the Israeli soldiers, even if that is the last thing that I would be able to do. And this is the feeling of everybody. We are helpless. We have nothing to lose."
"If I must die"
| "If I must die" by Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer killed in Gaza in December 2023 |
Refaat Alareer's final poem, "If I must die", was widely circulated after his killing and was translated into more than 40 languages:
- If I must die,
- you must live
- to tell my story
- to sell my things
- to buy a piece of cloth
- and some strings,
- (make it white with a long tail)
- so that a child, somewhere in Gaza
- while looking heaven in the eye
- awaiting his dad who left in a blaze—
- and bid no one farewell
- not even to his flesh
- not even to himself—
- sees the kite, my kite you made,
- flying up above
- and thinks for a moment an angel is there
- bringing back love
- If I must die
- let it bring hope
- let it be a story.
References
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