Refaat Alareer

Refaat Alareer (رفعت العرعير; 23 September 1979 – 6 December 2023) was a Palestinian writer, poet, professor, and activist from the Gaza Strip.

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.

Refaat Alareer was born 23 September 1979 in Shuja'iyya in Gaza City.

Growing up in Gaza, he said, meant "every move I took and every decision I made were influenced (usually negatively) by the Israeli occupation."

Alareer earned a BA in English in 2001 from the Islamic University of Gaza and an MA from University College London in 2007.

Alareer earned a BA in English in 2001 from the Islamic University of Gaza and an MA from University College London in 2007.

In 2007, Alareer became a professor at Islamic University in Gaza, where he taught world literature and creative writing, with a focus on Shakespeare.

This included the work of Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai, which he called beautiful but dangerous.

He co-founded the organization We Are Not Numbers, a mentorship program that matches writers in Gaza with authors abroad.

The organization promotes the power of storytelling as a means of Palestinian resistance.

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 2023 Israel–Hamas war, Alareer made media appearances on the BBC, Democracy Now!, and ABC News.

In the immediate aftermath of the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, he described the attack 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 7 October attack as lies used to "justify the Gaza genocide."

Patrick Kingsley, Jerusalem bureau chief of the The New York Times, wrote that Alareer's critical remarks about Israel drew accusations in Israel as being potentially antisemitic.

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 backlash.

This backlash included an online harassment campaign from Bari Weiss which led Alareer to tweet, "If I get killed by Israeli bombs or my family is harmed, I blame Bari Weiss and her likes."

Alareer edited two volumes of Palestinian short stories, Gaza Writes Back (2014) and Gaza Unsilenced (2015).

In an interview, he stated: "Gaza Writes Back was an attempt to provide a testimony for future generations."

The New York Times reported that many of Alareer's views reflected his anger at Israel, which was worsened by the killing of his brother in an Israeli airstrike during the 2014 war, and the fact that the Israeli blockade on Gaza had at times prevented him from leaving the Strip to study and teach abroad.

Alareer and his wife had six children.

His brother, Hamada, as well as his wife Nusayba's grandfather, brother, sister, and three nieces were killed during the 2014 Gaza War in an Israeli bombing campaign.

In total, Israel killed more than 30 relatives of Alareer and his wife.

During the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis, Alareer wrote an op-ed in The New York Times describing the effects on his children.

He was a Gaza Zoo volunteer, which he continued during the 2023 war.

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 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.

Alareer was sharply critical of Israel.

On 6 December 2023, Alareer was killed in an Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza, along with his brother, brother's son, sister, and her three children, during the 2023 Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip.

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."

He earned a Ph.D. in English Literature at the Universiti Putra Malaysia in 2017 with a dissertation entitled "Unframing John Donne's Transgressive Poetry in Light of Bakhtin's Dialogic Theories."