Emotional tribute to Prof Refaat Alareer, who thanked them ‘from under the Israeli bombs’
Celtic fans have paid an emotional tribute to Prof Refaat Alareer, the Palestinian poet, academic and freedom activist who was murdered by Israel on Thursday, during its genocide in Gaza.
In late October, Prof Alareer had posted to his Twitter account with videos of the Celtic crowd’s show of solidarity with Palestinians against Israeli war crimes, occupation and apartheid:
The message posted by the North Curve Celtic Twitter account, which represents fans in the club’s standing section, was a simple and moving tribute to his courage, values and solidarity:
Alareer was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Thursday. He was just 44 and his brother Salah, his brother’s son Mohammed, and his sister Asmaa with three of her children, Alaa, Yahia and Mohammed, were also murdered in the same airstrike. After the genocide started, he predicted his own murder in interviews with independent media. In a poem, titled ‘If I must die’, he asked those who survived him to tell his story and make a kite for a child in Gaza to fly. On 1 November, he pinned it to the top of his Twitted profile, where it remains:
If I must die,
you must live
to tell my story
to sell my things
to buy a piece of cloth
and some strings,
(make it white with a long tail)
so that a child, somewhere in Gaza
while looking heaven in the eye
awaiting his dad who left in a blaze–
and bid no one farewell
not even to his flesh
not even to himself–
sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above
and thinks for a moment an angel is there
bringing back love
If I must die
let it bring hope
let it be a tale
Israel has targeted the homes of doctors and journalists among the approximately 20,000 civilians it has killed so far, around half of them children. Many thousands more have been maimed and irrevocably traumatised and the occupiers have also destroyed libraries and other repositories of Palestinian culture and has been accused of trying to eradicate even the idea of Palestine and its people.
Israel’s far right regime has also murdered and maimed journalists in Lebanon, with Amnesty International demanding those responsible be pursued for their war crimes.
The day after he died, the UK abstained on a UN Security Council emergency ceasefire motion and the US vetoed it. They were reportedly the only members not to support it.
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