Tel Aviv Tribune Net correspondents
Gaza- The head of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Observatory, Dr. Rami Abdo, confirms that his personal academic friend Rifaat Al-Arair, professor of English literature and prominent poet, was martyred in an assassination carried out by the Israeli occupation army, after persecution and threats last Wednesday, in an air strike that directly targeted him in a residential apartment, weeks after He received death threats via the Internet and mobile phone from Israeli accounts.
Rami Abdo told Tel Aviv Tribune Net, “Israel has a long record of targeting Palestinian academics and elites, and the circumstances of targeting Rifaat are clear, whether in repeatedly warning and threatening him, or in the method of his assassination, as the place where he was located was specifically targeted.”
Details of the assassination
The head of the Human Rights Observatory provided Tel Aviv Tribune Net with a detailed statement about the persecution and threats that Rifaat was subjected to over a period of weeks, which ended with his physical liquidation in an assassination that he described as “cowardly.” He said that an air strike carried out by Israeli warplanes targeted the apartment in which he was located, and it belonged to his sister. It is located on the second floor of a 3-storey residential building, which clearly indicates that the apartment was specifically targeted in this building.
His brother Salah and one of his sons (Muhammad), his sister Asma and her three children (Alaa, Yahya and Muhammad) were martyred along with Dr. Al-Arair, and his brother Alaa’s wife and two other children were injured as a result of the air strike.
The martyr doctor had been displaced from his home several times since the outbreak of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip on October 7, and according to his friend Dr. Rami, Al-Arair had moved, a few days before his assassination, with his wife and children from his sister’s apartment to one of the shelter centers in A school affiliated with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in the Al-Tuffah neighborhood, northeast of Gaza City.
Dr. Rami relied on the testimony of a close friend of his and the martyr Al-Arair, confirming that he received a phone call from an unknown person who introduced himself as an Israeli officer, and threatened him that they knew exactly which school he was in, and they were about to reach him as the Israeli ground forces advanced deep into Gaza.
This call prompted Al-Arair to return again to his sister’s apartment, hidden and alone, leaving his wife and children in the shelter center, believing that it would provide him with a safe refuge compared to a school crowded with thousands of displaced people, according to the head of the Euro-Mediterranean Observatory.
The same speaker explained that the juniper He received many death threats and hate messages from Israeli accounts on social media, and accusations of incitement. Over the course of weeks since the beginning of the war on Gaza.
Why did Israel assassinate him?
The martyr Dr. Rifaat Al-Arair was an inspiration to a generation of young people. He realized early on, from his position of specialization and teaching English literature at the Islamic University of Gaza, the value of language in addressing others and the outside world. He founded, with young men and women from his students and other initiators, the “We Are Not Numbers” project to publish realistic stories in the language. English about Palestinian life in its various aspects, and the connection between Palestinian suffering and the occupation.
In the third war on Gaza in 2014, Israeli warplanes destroyed his house in the Shujaiya neighborhood, east of Gaza City, and killed more than 30 members of his family and relatives.
The head of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Observatory said, “Rifaat represents a unique Palestinian case in telling the Palestinian story without appeasement and beautification of the facts. This case represented a meeting point for thousands of supporters of the Palestinian cause, and among his students who relied heavily on the basic lines and features of his speech about the Palestinian struggle and resistance.”
The martyr Rifaat was, according to his friend Dr. Rami, “the most daring in addressing issues, and so courageous that it prompted me repeatedly to talk to him about the need to tone down the rhetoric in order to preserve his accounts on social media platforms.”
But the martyr doctor was “stubborn about the truth. One account would be closed and another would be opened, to the point that at one time he was managing ten accounts, and he never failed to do what he could to guide young people and teach them how to write and express their issues. That is why you cannot count his fans.” “, according to Dr. Rami.
Rami continues in his testimony that “Rifat was a good man. He went to his office, 3 days before his martyrdom He took the initiative to provide a monthly financial allowance to the building guard and the employment employee after inspecting their conditions while he was under fire, even though the matter was outside his responsibility.”
The head of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Observatory stressed the necessity of “conducting an immediate investigation into this deliberate and targeted killing of a prominent Palestinian academic, writer, poet, and activist, and holding Israel accountable for his assassination.”
It seemed remarkable during the escalating Israeli war on Gaza, for the third month in a row, that a group of prominent scientific and academic figures were martyred, such as the martyr Dr. Rifaat Al-Arair, which Dr. Rami places in the context of “physical liquidation through assassinations and deliberate targeting of Palestinian elites.”
