TERRITORIES.- He poet Palestinian Refaat Alareer, a leading figure in a generation of Gazan authors who wrote in English to tell the history of the territory, died on the night of December 7 in an Israeli bombing raid, his relatives said.
“The murder of Refaat is tragic, painful and scandalous. It is an immense loss,” his friend Ahmed Alnaouq said on the social network X (formerly Twitter).
The Gaza Health Ministry, controlled by Hams, had reported deadly bombings last night in the north of the territory.
“My heart is broken. My friend and colleague Refaat Alareer was murdered with his family a few minutes ago,” Gazan poet Mosab Abu Toha wrote on Facebook.
poet’s life
A professor of English literature at the Islamic University of Gaza, Alareer was co-founder of the We are not numbers project, which unites Gazan authors with mentors abroad who help them write in English about their reality.
Edit the book Gaza writes backa compendium of chronicles about life in that territory written by young authors, and published Gaza unsilenced.
A few days after the start of the Israeli ground offensive, Alareer said that he refused to leave the north of the Strip, then the epicenter of the fighting.
I also published a poem in X that went viral under the title If I must die: “If I have to die, let it bring hope, let it be a story,” said its last verses.
FUENTE: AFP
