A Palestinian gay man has been beheaded in the occupied West Bank because of his sexual orientation, an Israeli LGBT+ rights organization said on Friday, with Palestinian police contesting the motive for the crime.
Palestinian police said Ahmed Abu Murkhiyeh, 25, was found beheaded on Wednesday in Hebron, a city in the southern West Bank where he was from.
In a statement, the young man’s relatives said he was killed “while visiting his family in Hebron”, without giving further details about the circumstances of his death.
According to Rita Petrenko, director of the Israeli association al-Bait al-Mokhtalef, Ahmed Abou Murkhiyeh had contacted this organization in April 2021 after having fled the West Bank, where he feared persecution, and since then he has lived in associative shelters. In Israel.
He had “not been in contact” with his family since then and was preparing an asylum application for Canada, he told AFP.
The police question the homosexuality of the young man
A few hours before his death, he was in Tel Aviv and had no intention of going to Hebron, Petrenko said, wondering how he could have ended up in this city afterwards.
“I think they killed him because of his sexual orientation,” he added.
Palestinian police reported his murder in a statement on Thursday, without giving a reason. However, she questions the victim’s homosexuality while several Palestinian security sources told AFP that the murder was related to drug trafficking. A member of her family was arrested, according to these sources who requested anonymity.
Rami Fahel, director of the Alwan Israeli Arab association for the defense of the LGBT+ community, told AFP that he had met with Abu Murkhiyeh on several occasions, including at least once in Tel Aviv. Her family says that she lived in Jordan.
Homosexuality remains a largely taboo subject in Palestinian society. According to human rights NGOs, Israel granted residence permits to some people from the LGBT+ community who feared persecution in the Palestinian Territories.
Contacted by AFP, Cogat, the Israeli body in charge of civilian operations in the Palestinian Territories, did not indicate whether it had granted a residence permit to Ahmed Abou Murkhiyeh.
Source: BFM TV
