Personal Info
- Country of residence: Palestine
Information
Rafat Al-Ara'ir (23 September 1979 – 6 December 2023) was a Palestinian academic, writer, and poet from the Gaza Strip , who some have called the "pioneer of the English language". He taught literature and creative writing at the Islamic University of Gaza , and co-founded the We Are Not Numbers project , which aims to address the suffering of Gazans in the aftermath of the 2023 Israeli-Palestinian war , and which paired Gazan authors with mentors abroad to help them write stories about their reality in English .
His biography
Rafat Rafiq Saeed al-Ara’ir was born in the Shuja’iyya neighborhood of Gaza City on September 23, 1979. He married and had six children. In the 2014 war on Gaza, Israel killed his brother Hamada, his wife Naseeba’s grandfather, her brother, her sister, and her sister’s three children.
His academic and professional career
He obtained a BA in English from the Islamic University of Gaza in 2001, an MA from University College London in 2007, and a PhD in English Literature from Universiti Putra Malaysia .
He also taught a course in creative writing and world literature to university students and noted: “As Palestinians under occupation, storytelling goes beyond educational value to the urgent need to own our narrative, which gives power back to the community rather than to the elite. The stories that people can tell about a land are evidence of their right to that land.” He also taught poetry and English literature at the Islamic University of Gaza for several years, where he explained the works of Shakespeare , Thomas Wyatt , John Donne, Wilfred Owen , and many other English writers and poets.
His literary career
Rifaat has edited two volumes of Palestinian short stories in English, Gaza Unsilenced (2015) and Gaza Writes Back (2014). In 2007, he became a professor at the Islamic University of Gaza , where he taught world literature and creative writing. This included the works of the Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai , which he described as beautiful but dangerous. He co-founded the We Are Not Numbers project , which paired Gazan authors with mentors abroad to help them write stories about their reality in English . He was also a columnist for the English section of the Palestinian Information Center , and the founder and supervisor of its social media section. Rifaat wrote an op-ed for The New York Times during the 2021 Israeli-Palestinian clashes in which he and his wife recounted the loss of more than 30 relatives.
During the 2023 Israeli-Palestinian war , Rifaat appeared on the BBC, Democracy Now!, and ABC News . He was keen to expose the crimes of aggression against the Strip and to convey Gaza’s voice to the outside world. He had said in one of his interviews: “ I am an academic and the hardest thing I have at home is a whiteboard pen, and I will throw it at Israeli soldiers if they try to storm my house, even if it is the last thing I do .” He also said, “ When we write about the martyrs, we must mention that the occupation killed them. We must not leave the action to the unknown .”
Documenting oral history
Al-Ara’ir sought to document the oral narrative of the elderly and tell their stories, also known as oral history, which is on the verge of extinction due to the death of this age group, as well as due to modern technology, as he indicated in his presentation on the TED platform, “We stopped caring about stories.”
"I am the man I am today because of the stories my mother and grandmother told me," he continued.
His murder
He had announced his refusal to leave northern Gaza days after the Israeli ground response to the 2023 Palestinian-Israeli war . He had published a widely circulated poem on the “X” platform entitled “If I Must Die,” concluding it by saying: “Let this inspire hope, let this be a story.”
Rifaat and his family were killed on December 6, 2023, in an Israeli airstrike on his sister's house in northern Gaza . His brother, sister, and her four children were also killed in the bombing. This was during the Israeli response to the 2023 Palestinian-Israeli war .
His friend Asem Al-Nabih, a member of the Gaza Municipality Emergency Committee, who was with him for many days of the war until the last hour before he was targeted, mourned him. He said that he was a source of ideas and a real human being. Later, on April 26, 2024, Israel assassinated his daughter Shaima, along with her husband and their three-month-old baby.
Rafat Initiative
On June 5, 2024, the “Rifaat Initiative” was announced to commemorate his memory and continue his journey.
His works
Edited groups
2014: Gaza Writes Back ( ISBN 978-1-93598-2-357 )
Translated to Italian: Gaza writes back. Authors and authors of Gaza, Palestine ( ISBN 978-8-89410-6-909 )
2015: Gaza Unsilenced ( ISBN 978-1-93598-2-555 )
Articles
2022: “Gaza Asks: When Shall this Pass?”, in Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire ( ISBN 9781642596991 )
2023: "They even keep our corpses: Dying in Israeli prisons." Scalawag Magazine.
Source
Achievements and Awards
- Years in active
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