Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer killed in Gaza strike
Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer, one of the leaders of a young generation of authors from Gaza who took the gamble of writing in English to tell their story, was killed in an Israeli strike, his relatives announced overnight from Thursday to Friday.
“The assassination of Refaat is tragic, painful and scandalous. It’s a huge loss.”his friend Ahmed Alnaouq commented on X after deadly raids Thursday evening in the north of the Gaza Strip, according to the Ministry of Health, administered by Hamas.
“My heart is broken, my friend and colleague Refaat Alareer was killed with his family a few minutes ago (…) I can not believe it. We loved picking strawberries together”wrote his friend, the Gazan poet Mosab Abu Toha, on Facebook. “Rest in peace Refaat Alareer. We will continue to be guided by your wisdom, today and for eternity”, author and journalist Ramzy Baroud testified on X. The American specialized site Literary Hub also paid tribute to him.
Professor of English literature at the Islamic University of Gaza, where he notably taught Shakespeare, Refaat Alareer was one of the co-founders of the project “We are not numbers” (“We are not numbers”), pairing authors from Gaza with “mentors” abroad who help them write stories in English about their reality. He had edited the book Gaza writes backchronicles of life in Gaza by young Palestinian authors, and published Gaza unsilencednot translated into French.
A few days after the start of the Israeli ground offensive, Refaat Alareer said he refused to leave the north of the Gaza Strip, the epicenter of the fighting at the time. At the end of November, when a truce between Israel and Hamas allowed Gazans to circulate in the streets of the city, Refaat Alareer described a devastated setting. “I walked around Gaza City shortly after the truce began. The destruction is total. Houses, buildings, mosques, public gardens, schools, water pipes, electricity poles. »
On November 1st, he had published a poem on X that went viral titled If I must die (If I were to die) which concludes with these words: “May this bring hope, may this be a tale”.