Necropolitics

Refaat Alareer and the politics of death

Jan 16, 2025

This morning we woke to the news of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. The news that so many, for so long, have shouted and screamed and cried and died for. But it will not happen immediately. It seems more days of killing and maiming are necessary.

I do not know how to feel. Mostly, I feel numb and do not believe that this represents a true ending, the ending which the people of Palestine so desperately need and deserve. Nor can it bring back the lives of the hostages who have already been killed. I hope that it brings joy for those Israeli hostages that will be released, and for their families, but it is difficult to imagine feeling joy when the cost of your life is multiplied by so many Palestinian dead.

Necropolitics is the politics of death. The philosopher Achille Mbembe described it as ‘the capacity to define who matters and who does not, who is disposable and who is not.’ Refeer Alareer, the Palestinian writer, poet and academic who wrote the poem ‘If I Must Die’ wrote prophetically of his future death in his poetry and writings, and did so long before October 7th. As far back as 2014 Alareer questioned his fate and the fate of his family ‘[My daughter] is now two wars old… When will this pass? … How many dead Palestinians are enough?’

We now have an answer to Alareer’s question. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health 46,707 people in Gaza have been killed since October 7, 2023, including nearly 18,000 children. This figure means that one out of every fifty people in Gaza has been killed. It’s thought that the real figures could be much higher, a report in the Lancet published last week estimated that the under-reporting of deaths stood at 41%. 1,589 Israelis have been reported as killed since Oct 7^th. These figures average out at 29 Palestinians killed per Israeli. This is necropolitics in action.

I heard the Israeli spokesperson David Mencer on the radio this morning, arguing that the ceasefire was an indication of the ‘moral clarity’ that Israel has demonstrated throughout the war. What, in his view, does a lack of moral clarity look like? I wondered. Might it look like the indiscriminate mass killing of tens of thousands of civilians? 18,000 children? Might it look like the bombing of hospitals, refugee camps and schools? The targeting of critical infrastructure and the obfuscation of aid? The mass starving of a population?

The Israel/Gaza war has revealed the utter hollowness of international norms and the West’s claims to uphold and defend human rights. These ideals do not apply to the Palestinians, who are not deemed worthy of the rights that so many of us take for granted. A report by Amnesty International, which confirmed that Israel has committed a genocide against the people of Gaza, added that ‘Month after month, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhuman group unworthy of human rights and dignity.’

Alareer was killed in December 2023 by an Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza, along with his brother, sister and four of his nephews. In April 2024 his eldest daughter and newborn granddaughter were killed by an Israeli airstrike on their home.

May their memory be a blessing.

Free Palestine.