Over a decade before the Israeli military killed Refaat Alareer, the Gazan scholar wrote 91 words for his daughter, a poem entitled, “If I Must Die.”

The fatalism of the piece peered into a future most parents might avoid considering, a possibility all too realistic for Palestinians: a future in which an Israeli-launched missile robs a child of a parent.

“If I must die,” Alareer wrote, “you must live / to tell my story.”

Alareer died on Dec. 6, 2023 in an Israeli airstrike that also killed his brother, sister, and her four children. Months later, the Israeli military killed Alareer’s daughter, son-in-law and infant grandson in an airstrike, while sheltering in the building of Global Communities, an international relief charity.

In the days following Alareer’s death, artists from around the world dedicated tributes to Alareer with readings, translations into dozens of languages, and musical compositions of “If I Must Die.” Palestinian vocalist Nai Barghouti and Jordanian singer Farah Siraj have each composed musical versions of the poem, and Scottish actor Brian Cox performed a reading of the poem just days after Alareer died. 

In the two and half years since Alareer’s death, tributes to the slain scholar continue to pour out from artists around the world, including in Syracuse, where local musicians on Saturday afternoon will gather at May Memorial Unitarian Universalist Society for the “Music for Palestine” concert.

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mosab Abu Toha, a Gazan refugee now based in Syracuse, will appear at the event. Abu Toha and Alareer were friends and classmates who shared a passion for writing and education.

In a message to Central Current, Abu Toha praised the event as an “act of humanity” at a time when “silence and distortion have become normalized.”

“This event is significant not only because it honors the memory of the victims of Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza,” Abu Toha wrote, “but also because it brings people together around a cause that has been relentlessly misrepresented and dehumanized, not only by governments, but by much of the mainstream media and even parts of the cultural and academic establishment.”

The benefit concert will also feature performances from singer-songwriters Zoë Mullan-Stout and Danan Tsan, singer Malichi Simmons, cellists Lucas Button and Lydia Parkington, and a trombone octet.

All proceeds from the event will benefit the Gaza Soup Kitchen, the Middle East Children’s Alliance and Playgrounds for Palestine. 

Organizers suggest a $15 donation, though they welcome any donation, according to a press release. Attendees who donate more than $55 will receive a hoodie from Wear The Peace featuring the title of Alareer’s poem. Wear the Peace is dividing the proceeds of that sale between Alareer’s surviving family members, and We Are Not Numbers, an organization Alareer worked with to support emerging Palestinian writers.

The event will feature the world premiere of Syracuse-based composer Steven Button’s own composition of “If I Must Die.” 

In an interview with Central Current, Button said he was familiar with the poem before hearing musical renditions of it, and said Siraj’s composition accentuated the effect of Alareer’s words, inspiring Button to create his own composition.

Button said that one line in Alareer’s poem particularly moved him toward composing the piece and helping organize the benefit show.

“He invokes a child who’s lost his father, who disappeared in the blaze, and speaks of the child looking at heaven in the eye, and that image to me just encapsulates the extreme horror of this entire, of what’s going on there,” Button said. “I don’t understand how our world can let this happen to children.”

Between Oct. 7, 2023 and Feb. 3, 2026, more than 70,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza, including more than 20,000 children, according to UNICEF. Another 44,500 children were injured in that timeframe, and thousands were diagnosed with malnutrition last year, according to UNICEF. 

Thousands of bodies are believed to remain under the rubble that now covers Gaza.

“I cannot think of a more noble cause to stand for and support. And I cannot think of a more horrific, decades-long chain of war crimes and atrocities that deserves stronger condemnation from the world,” Abu Toha wrote. “Syracuse must be proud of this event and its organizers.”

Fellow Palestinian writer Yousef Aljamal, Alareer’s friend and mentee, called Alareer ​“the giant of the Palestinian narrative coming out of Gaza.” 

Amplifying that narrative was Alareer’s focus for much of his life, an effort that, in Syracuse and around the world, continues to resound after his death.

Alareer in 2014 edited a book aimed at that endeavor, entitled Gaza Writes Back. The book compiled short stories written in English from young Palestinian writers, aimed at a Western audience.

In a 2022 essay, Alareer reflected on that book while recounting the Israeli violence that impacted each chapter of his life. As “If I Must Die” suggests, Alareer was well aware that violence might end his life, too.

“When I was approached to write for this book, the promise was that it will effect change and that policies, especially in the United States, will be improved. But, honestly, will they?” Alareer wrote. “Does a single Palestinian life matter? Does it?”

Click here to read a full version of Refaat Alareer’s “If I Must Die.”

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Patrick McCarthy is a staff reporter at Central Current covering government and politics. A graduate of Syracuse University’s Maxwell and Newhouse Schools, McCarthy was born and raised in Syracuse and...