Living to tell the story

IF I MUST DIE
Poetry and Prose
by Refaat Alareer
280 pps, OR Books, $25.00 They hid the news from me for three days. 
In the chaos of displacement, living in my uncle’s house, my family knew what Dr. Refaat Alareer meant to me. They knew his assassination would break something inside me, so they kept it from me. Whispering among themselves, they were trying to shield me, as if they could protect me from yet another unbearable loss. But the truth has a way of finding its way through. 
My grandmother, 80 years old, was listening to her small radio when she turned to me and said, “You know Alareer’s son? The one who speaks English in the media? They assassinated him.” 
That was how I found out. Spoken without preparation, without warning, just another fact to be revealed in a long list of killings.  “But he phoned me just a week ago, making sure everything is fine!” I cried.  Three months later, my grandmother and my entire family—14 people—would also be killed. 
Reading If I Must Die now was not just an intellectual exercise for me. It was personal. It was painful. It is a book written by my professor and my mentor, the remarkable writer Dr. Refaat Alareer. Though he knew his voice was a threat to the occupier, he wrote anyway, for he believed it was his duty. He was murdered for his words, just as my family was murdered for the mere idea of being Palestinian.


A testimony of steadfastness


If I Must Die is a powerful collection of Dr. Refaat Alareer’s words, compiled by Yousef Aljamal, with a foreword by Susan Abulhawa and published by OR Books in 2024. The collection spans over a decade of Alareer’s writings, from 2010 until December 2023—when Israel killed him, assuming his voice could be silenced. Instead, this book ensures that his words live on, preserving his memories, his most powerful statements, and his steadfast fight for justice. The book is a powerful blend of poetry, prose, and personal insights, including 13 of his most remarkable poems—such as O, Earth (Land Day Poem) and If I Must Die, Let It Be a Tale—as well as 22 of his published essays from The Electronic Intifada, Mondoweiss, The New York Times, and others. Through pieces like “The Story of My Brother, Martyr Mohammed Alareer,” and “Haunted by the Horrors of Cast Lead,” he documents personal and collective grief. His last writings, including “Israel Bombed My Home Without Warning” and “On the Resilience of the Palestinian Community,” narrate how awful Israel’s latest aggressions were in Gaza, written just weeks before his assassination. In addition, eight transcribed podcasts, interviews, and lectures capture his voice and worldview, transforming this book from a mere literary work to a historical record of Palestinian steadfastness. 
If I Must Die is more than just a book; it is a witness, an act of resistance, and a voice that will not be silenced. Alareer’s poems embody the essence of resistance, grief, steadfastness—sumud—and storytelling as survival. His poems are not just personal but reflect the cause of a whole people, narrating the resilience of a people who refused to be forgotten from generation to generation. In poems like “If I Must Die” and “And We Live On,” he assures that the stories of his and every martyr will live on and continue to be told in the fabric of kites of every child in Gaza, for he believed that “Palestine is a martyr away, a story away.”  “Over the Wall” and “O, Earth” anchor memory of the land and its people. To be buried in soil does not mean the end, but resembles the hope of rebirth. Rooted in lands, our martyrs connect us even more to the land. Likewise, in “Over the Wall”, the grandmother is a strong embodiment that ties its people more to the land. Repeating “There” signifies a longing for the homeland, even when it is occupied by walls, blood, and separation. “She smells like soil. And smiles like soil. And blinks like soil when touched by rain.“


Resisting through words


Dr. Refaat Alareer’s early life was impacted by the harsh reality of Israeli occupation. Born and raised in Gaza, he painfully understood that survival often required fleeing soldiers, regardless of whether he had thrown a stone or not. As a child, he witnessed the brutal violence of the First Intifada (1987–1993), when Israel killed over 1,600 Palestinians while enforcing Yitzhak Rabin’s “broken bones” policy, and Refaat was injured with two bullets. By the age of twelve, he had become a proud stone thrower. However, when he was thirteen, Israeli soldiers killed his friend, Lewa Bakroun, for throwing stones. “The settler wanted to teach those who threw stones a lesson by killing a kid,” he later wrote. The loss was tragic, and over time, his resistance transformed: shifting from the physical act of resistance to the literary battlefield. He traded stones for words. During his life, Refaat lost over fifty relatives, including his uncle who was tortured to death in an Israeli prison, and his younger brother, Hamada, whom he saw as his first son, and whose house was bombed. These deaths evolved a new shape of defiance for him— writing. It felt as urgent as stone-throwing and he realized that words, like stones, might defeat injustice, shatter illusions, and act as weapons against occupation. Later he would collect the stories of his students and always encourage them to write more, publish more, and tweet more. His book Gaza Writes Back was the strongest proof of his act of defiance, proving that even if the occupation silenced voices, the words would continue.



Mentor to many 


Dr. Refaat Alareer was not only a lecturer; he was a symbol, a voice. He always sought excellence in his students, shaping them with his so-called ‘tough love’ and continuously pushing them to be better thinkers, writers, and Palestinians. “I’m tough because I love you,” he would say. I was one of those students—first in my undergraduate years, then in my master’s journey, where we worked side by side on research, projects, and trainings. He saw something in me that I sometimes doubted in myself. “You have the talent of writing. Keep writing. You are such a promising researcher, Reem, Masha’Allah,” he once told me. 
In September 2023, during what would become our last training together, he introduced me and my friend, proudly: “These are my students and colleagues—better than me in this field.” I carry those words with me now, heavy with loss but also with responsibility. If he saw promise in me, in his students and trainees, then we must honor it. If he believed in our voice, then we must use it, as he assures in his poem “And We Live On”: 
We dream and pray.

Clinging to life even harder
Every time a dear one’s life
Is forcibly rooted up.

We live.

We live.
We do.



The power of Palestinian stories

“As a Palestinian, I have been brought up on stories and storytelling. It’s both selfish and treacherous to keep a story to yourself—stories are meant to be told and retold…” Refaat Alareer


These words capture the essence of If I Must Die, for Palestinian stories must be told.  Dr. Alareer believed that telling stories is a duty as much as an art form. “Stories teach life even if the hero suffers or dies at the end. For Palestinians, stories are the much-needed talent for life.” Though he is not physically present now, his words make him so. And this is the power of storytelling he believed in.  In his classes, trainings, and chats, he would keep repeating the same stories, with different themes, characters, and tones, zooming in and out, to keep them alive in memory. He believe that building a free Palestine in our imagination is a must, a first, before freeing Palestine itself. Having a strong bond with his students, he saw them as the next generation of storytellers, the ones who would continue to tell the story of Palestine long after he died. 

If I Must Die is a legacy, not just a book. His words will live on. Dr. Refaat Alareer’s words will last longer than the occupation he wrote about, and his poetry will continue to inspire people who fight for freedom. People will continue flying kites for him, and to outlive the memory of all martyrs. “His mind was unbreakable and beautiful and fine,” as Abulhawa put it. Likewise, his writing is painfully beautiful, portraying the grief, strength, and love that complete the Palestinian story and his loss was untimely tragic.  Though his murder broke many things in me and in his beloveds, his writing will honor the memory of him, his grandmother, and my grandmother.

  As he wrote: 
”If I must die,
You must live

To tell my story.”
 We will, Dr. Refaat.