A friend of Refaat Alareer told @EuroMedHR he “received an anonymous phone call from someone who identified himself as an Israeli officer and threatened Refaat that they knew precisely the school where he was located and were about to get to his location with the advancement of Israeli ground troops.”
According to EuroMed’s report, he then returned to his sister’s apartment to avoid endangering others in the school/shelter. There, he was killed by a “surgical” strike by the Israeli military.
In the weeks leading up to his murder, Refaat received a long series of direct messages from Israeli soldiers and pro-Israel fanatics promising to kill him and torture his family.
The wave of death threats was inspired by neocon pundit @bariweiss, who took to Twitter to falsely accuse Refaat of mocking a Jewish baby who had been baked in an oven by Hamas. Of course, no Jewish baby was killed in this way on October 7; it was one of many macabre fabrications which Israeli forces have re-enacted in their genocidal rampage of vengeance against the population of Gaza.
Israel has a long tradition of assassinating Palestinian intellectuals. Before Refaat, there was Ghassan Khanafani. But if this crime was inspired by a sarcastic tweet, it evinces a new layer of sadism and psychological insecurity. Indeed, if the EuroMed report is valid, it appears Israel hunted down an internationally known academic and murdered him along with his family because it couldn’t take a joke.
Mike