Refaat Alareer (Arabic: رفعت العرعير, romanized: Rifaʿat al-ʿAriʿīr; 23 September 1979 – 6 December 2023) was a Palestinian writer, poet, professor, and activist from the Gaza Strip.

The Euro-Med Monitor released a statement saying that Alareer was deliberately targeted, "surgically bombed out of the entire building", and came after weeks of "death threats that Refaat received online and by phone from Israeli accounts.

"[5] On 26 April 2024, his eldest daughter and his newborn grandchild were killed by an Israeli airstrike on their Gaza City home.

[6] In December 2024, his final collection of writing, the posthumously published If I Must Die: Poetry and Prose, became a bestseller.

[3] He earned a Ph.D. in English Literature at the Universiti Putra Malaysia[10] in 2017 with a dissertation entitled "Unframing John Donne's Transgressive Poetry in Light of Bakhtin's Dialogic Theories.

[4] During the 2021 Israel-Palestine crisis, he wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times about the war occurring in the Gaza Strip, ending it with a conversation with his 8-year old daughter, Linah:[19] On Tuesday, Linah asked her question again after my wife and I didn’t answer it the first time: Can they destroy our building if the power is out?

"[24] He also rejected allegations of Hamas engaging in sexual violence during the 7 October attack as lies used to "justify the Gaza genocide.

In response to the claim, since debunked, that Hamas had killed a baby by placing it in an oven, Alareer jokingly responded "with or without baking powder" on Twitter, which subsequently provoked backlash.

"[28][29] The New York Times reported that many of Alareer's views reflected his anger at Israel, which was worsened by the killing of his brother in an Israeli airstrike during the 2014 war, and the fact that the Israeli blockade on Gaza had at times prevented him from leaving the Strip to study and teach abroad.

[5][needs update] During the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis, Alareer wrote an op-ed in The New York Times describing the effects on his children.

[31][32] On 26 April 2024, five months after Alareer's death, his eldest daughter Shaimaa, her husband Mohammed Siyam, and their newborn baby were killed by an Israeli airstrike on their home in Gaza City.

"[45] Poet Mosab Abu Toha wrote: "My heart is broken, my friend and colleague Refaat Alareer was killed with his family.

"[46] Palestinian-American professor Sami Al-Arian noted: "He was an amazing poet, an articulate voice for Gazans, and a true bridge to people outside Palestine.