If I should die you must live to tell my story… Refaat Alareer
Jolene from SPSC, Aberdeen spoke movingly at the Gaza solidarity demo on 20 July about Refaat Alareer - a Palestinian writer, poet, professor, and activist from the Gaza Strip, who requested that if he should die, his tale to be told.
Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future.
― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas
Refaat 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. He 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.
Refaat taught literature and creative writing at the Islamic University of Gaza and co-founded the organization 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.
Refaat and his wife had six children.
During the 2014 Gaza War his brother, as well as his wife, grandfather, brother, sister, and three nieces were killed by an Israeli bombing campaign. In total, Israel killed more than 30 relatives of Refaat and his wife.
During the 2021 Israel-Palestine crisis, he wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times about the war occurring in the Gaza Strip, ending it with a conversation with his 8-year old daughter, Linah.
“On Tuesday, Linah asked her question again after my wife and I didn’t answer it the first time: Can they destroy our building if the power is out? I wanted to say: “Yes, little Linah, Israel can still destroy the beautiful al-Jawharah building, or any of our buildings, even in the darkness. Each of our homes is full of tales and stories that must be told. Our homes annoy the Israeli war machine, mock it, haunt it, even in the darkness. It can’t abide their existence. And, with American tax dollars and international immunity, Israel presumably will go on destroying our buildings until there is nothing left.” But I can’t tell Linah any of this. So I lie: “No, sweetie. They can’t see us in the dark.”
During the current genocide Refaat in Gaza continued to post on social media.
He said, “I Translate. I tell stories. I meme.
Read "Gaza Writes Back"? #Palestine #BlackLivesMatter #MalcolmX #SheikhJarrah #Gazaunderattack A quintessence of dust.
He wrote, “29th oct 2023 I was born and lived most of my life in Gaza under Israeli occupation and siege. And this work by Jewish people is important and matters to us. I never met a Jew who didn’t want to harm, shoot at, beat, or prevent me from traveling until I was 36 years of age.
“Israel is not all the Jews. And more and more Jews shoulder responsibility to prevent Israel from abusing Judaism and genociding us in the name of world Jewry, like Muslims and Arabs stood firmly against Isis that was abusing Islam and killing people in the name of Islam.”
When Refaat had internet he tweeted of life in Gaza. These tweets often called out he blatant lies of the occupation, destruction of bakeries. He retweeted he was proud of the doctors still working in November 2023, one of whom was Ghassan Abu Sitta. a British-Palestinian plastic and reconstructive surgeon who specialises in craniofacial surgery, aesthetic surgery, cleft lip and palate surgery, and trauma-related injuries. Since April 2024, he serves as Rector of the University of Glasgow.
In his last interview before being killed, with the sound of Israeli bombs exploding in the background, Refaat said that 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.”
On 6 December 2023, Refaat was killed by an Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza, along with his brother, sister, and four of his nephews. 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."
A few months after his death his eldest daughter wrote to him
"I have a beautiful news for you, I wish I could convey it to you while you are in front of me, I present to you your first grandchild. Do you know, my father, that you have become a grandfather? This is your grandson whom I have long imagined you carrying, but I never imagined that I would lose you early even before you see him."
On 26 April 2024, his eldest daughter and his newborn grandchild were killed by an Israeli airstrike on their Gaza City home.
So here I am at Refaats request.
If I must die
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 tale.
Refaat Alareer
Nov 1 2023
