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Gay Palestinian man murdered, decapitated in West Bank

Ahmed Hacham Hamdi Abu Markhieh had sought refuge in Israel

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Ahmed Hacham Hamdi Abu Markhieh (Photo courtesy of social media)

WDG, the Washington Blade’s media partner in Israel, wrote this article.

The decapitated body of Ahmed Hacham Hamdi Abu Markhieh was discovered in Hebron on Oct. 5 with his head cut off and lying beside it.

Marakhia, a 25-year-old Palestinian, has been living in Israel for the past two years. He fled after he was persecuted and received death threats because of his sexual orientation.

Rumors about Markhieh’s death started to circulate after a video on social media showed his body lying on the side of the road. Markhieh’s friends in Israel, who feared for his safety after he did not arrive at work in the morning, immediately linked his disappearance to the video and assumed that the body on the video was Marakhiaā€™s body.

Markhieh’s relatives, who live in the Palestinian Authority, issued a statement that acknowledged their mourning, but did not comment on the circumstances of his death.

“This is a very ugly crime,” one of his relatives told Al Karama, a Palestinian radio station, while asking for the family’s privacy to be respected after “this heinous and unprecedented crime that shocked the homeland.”

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Thomas R. Nides responded to the murder and said he was ā€œshocked and horrified by the murder and beheading of Ahmed Abu Murkia in Hebron.” 

“Violence against LGBTQI+ people is unacceptable,ā€ said Nides.

It is not clear how Marakhia traveled from Israel to the Palestinian territories.

His acquaintances in Israel believe he was kidnapped in Israel and brought back to Hebron, where he was murdered. According to them, Marakhia had no reason to return to Hebron by himself, especially because the danger posed to his life. Even his closest friends who helped him in Israel claim that this is the reason for his murder.

“He said that people in his village wanted to kill him,” said his acquaintances in Israel. “He was afraid of his brothers, his uncles, his cousins.”

The Palestinian police who are investigating the case have arrested a suspect in the murder, but they have not classified it as a hate crime. They also have not identified a potential motive for the murder.

“This is a new type of crime that we are not used to in Palestinian society,” said Loay Irzikat, a spokesman for the Palestinian police. “This is a dangerous development and it must be examined and analyzed broadly and deeply in order to understand why the incident developed in this way.”

Issa Amro, a Palestinian human rights activist, has claimed Marakhia’s death has nothing to do with his sexual orientation.

ā€œTo Israeli media and Israeli leftists, Ahmed Abu Markhieh was not killed in Hebron because he was gayā€, Amro tweeted, ā€œNo one in Hebron knew that he was gay, and the killer was his close friend, who lost his brain because of drugs, so please be accurate about it.ā€

Markhieh planned to move to Canada

While in Israel, Ahmed was active in the community and participated in an Arab LGBTQ group in the south. The many friends who knew him from volunteering describing a sensitive, brave and optimistic man who did everything he could to start a new life in Canada.

In order to promote his immigration application, Ahmed was assisted by Al Bait Al Mokhtalef (The Different House), a group that assists Palestinian LGBTQ and women in submitting asylum applications abroad.

“LGBTQ and Palestinian women who fled Palestinian Authority territories in danger for their lives due to their sexual orientation or gender identity do not receive any status in Israel and are prevented from submitting an asylum application as asylum seekers from other countries do,” explained Different House CEO Rita Petrenko. “After a long legal battle of human rights organizations, the state specifically opened the process of issuing ‘residence permits for welfare needs’ to LGBTQ people and Palestinian women.

Since this is a different process from the asylum application process, it causes them to lose some of the rights granted to asylum seekers, and deprives them of services intended for other asylum seekers. As of July 2022, Palestinians with residence permits for welfare purposes can receive work permit, which should be a great relief. But this still does not give them stability in life, because their status is not permanent. For most of them, the only solution is to ask the United Nations Commission for assistance in resettlement in a third country.ā€

The Different House helps those LGBTQ people mainly in dealing with the bureaucracy in the civil administration and getting or renewing a residence permit. The Different House also offers access to shelters, clinics and hospitals.

“We are cooperating with certain Knesset members for the purpose of changing policy. But we do not receive aid from the state for activities on behalf of Palestinian LGBTQs. There is assistance from the Ministry of Social Equality and the Beer Sheva municipality for social activities of Arab LGBTs in the south, in which Palestinians can of course participate,” said Petrenko. “We also collaborating with human rights organizations such as Doctors for Human Rights, the HIAS association, legal clinics, etc.ā€

Markhieh murdered less than a month before Israel elections

The difficult questions raised by Markhieh’s murder do not remain within the borders of the Palestinian Authority. They have been asked throughout Israel as well.

Media coverage of Markhieh’s murder undermine the sense of security among members of the LGBTQ community in Israel; and the case raises many questions among the members of the community concerning their personal safety. Community members have also demanded that the Israeli government will take care of the safety of those staying within its borders.

Less than a month before the elections in Israel, Markhieh’s shocking murder is even used by the politicians as a tool to confront their political opponents, as far as the LGBTQ issues are concerned.

Right-wing politicians have taken advantage of the opportunity to point out the cruelty of the political partners of the left-wing parties, which include the Arab parties Ra’am and the Joint List, and to emphasize that the aspiration for the establishment of a Palestinian state is the establishment of an ISIS state that executes LGBTQ people. In response, the left-wing activists emphasize that the right-wing parties teamed up with Jewish anti-LGBTQ parties, which are based on an anti-LGBTQ agenda, just to return to power.

There are currently around 100 LGBTQ Palestinians in Israel who received a residence permit to live in the country after fleeing the Palestinian territories due to their sexual orientation. But apart from the possibility of working, they do not receive refugee status that regulates their civil rights, and most of them are in some stage of immigrating to a third country, far from those to seek to do them harm.

The Different House believes that in order to save those Palestinians from Markhieh’s cruel fate, the state must help submit those requests and speed up their processing because these are life and death cases.

“First of all, what the state needs to do is to allow LGBTQ people and Palestinian women to submit asylum applications in the same way as LGBTQ people from other countries, and accordingly to carry out a process of permanent status or resettlement in a third country,ā€ Petrenko says, ā€œMost of the Palestinian LGBTQ people staying in Israel are afraid to stay in Israel, because they are afraid that they could be found here as well. The state can help by granting them asylum seeker status during the waiting period, similar to all other asylum seekers. 

For those who are unable to leave for unusual reasons, the state should enable a process similar to the one used in the process of recognizing a refugee and at the end of which permanent status is granted.ā€

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Middle East

Israeli Supreme Court rules country must allow two mothers on child’s birth certificate

LGBTQ activists praised the ruling

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The Israeli Supreme Court (Photo by the Israeli Supreme Court; public domain)

WDG, the Washington Blade’s media partner in Israel, published this article on their website on Thursday.

Supreme Court judges on Thursday unanimously ruled that the Population Authority must register female couples as mothers on the birth certificates of their children they have together.

The decision was made following a petition submitted by nine female couples, mothers of children born through anonymous sperm donation. The panel of judges, headed by Supreme Court President Uzi Fogelman and Judges Ruth Ronen and Alex Stein, rejected the Population Authority’s claim that the birth certificate reflects only biological parentage and ruled that both the birth mother and her partner must be registered as the child’s parent.

“The exclusion of the non-biological parent from the birth certificate means a preference for the position of the biological parent over parenting based on other parents,” Fogelman wrote in the ruling. “In terms of substantive law, the parenting of both parents ā€” the biological parent and the non-biological parent ā€” is equal and it includes the same basket of parental rights and duties. I do not believe that when at the level of substantive law there is equality between the parents, there is room to distinguish between them at the level of registration in the birth certificate.”

Fogelman also referred to the interpretation that may be given to the lack of registration on the birth certificate as “an offensive message according to which we are dealing with relationships that are different in nature and essence: while biological parentage is ‘real’ parentage, non-biological parentage is inferior and suspect parentage, a kind of ‘conditional’ parentage.”

The ruling does not apply to male couples because the petition dealt with couples who conceived with the help of anonymous sperm donation.

The ruling was issued as part of a petition submitted around eight years ago by nine female couples, who claimed that not registering the non-biological mother on the birth certificate deprives the child of rights that include acquiring foreign citizenship and petitioned the Interior Ministry and the Population and Immigration Authority to issue their children amended birth certificates that include the names of both mothers.

The Population Authority refused the couples’ request on the grounds that the birth certificate is a document that reflects the biological parentage at the time of birth, and is not updated with the passage of time. The petitioners claimed that the Population Authority’s policy violates the right to family life and the right to equality, since it discriminates against same-sex couples. And as evidence, they pointed out that when it comes to heterosexual couples, the Interior Ministry issues them corrected birth certificates ā€” even in cases of adoption by the spouse of the biological mother or in the case where sperm donation is used for the birth of the child.

Fogelman accepted the respondents’ position according to which the birth certificate was intended to document the identity of the child at the initial point in time of his life. Alongside this, he rejected the respondents’ position that the birth certificate was intended to reflect biological parentage.

“A birth certificate is one of the most important documents a person has. It confers a basket of rights and is also used for the purpose of regulating citizenship in foreign countries,” said attorneys Daniela Ya’akobi, Hagai Kalai and Achinoam Orbach, who represented the petitioners. “For all these years, the state has insisted on denying children of two mothers a birth certificate that reflects the reality of their lives. The judgment of the High Court of Justice put an end to ugly and unnecessary discrimination, which has no purpose and never had. It is a great victory, but no man needs or wants to win his country. The time has come for the state, on its own initiative, to allow full equality of rights for all its citizens, including LGBT people.”

Aguda Chair Hila Peer responded to the ruling.

“This is a historic day when our families are equal,” she said. “For years the Interior Ministry has refused to register proud mothers on the birth certificate and now, thanks to the High Court of Justice, we are taking a significant step towards equality.”

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Middle East

Sheila Weinberg becomes Israel’s first transgender council member

Former teacher elected in Kiryat Tivon on Feb. 27

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Sheila Weinberg (Photo courtesy of Carmit Simhi-Rokah)

WDG is the Washington Blade’s media partner in Israel. WDG published this article on their website.

Sheila Weinberg on Feb. 27 wrote another chapter in LGBTQ history in Israel when she was elected as the country’s first transgender council member. 

Weinberg, the 65-year-old chair of the “Transiot Israel” association and a former teacher, was elected to the Kiryat Tivon Local Council after her “More to Tivon” list won 37.7 percent of the votes.

In the past she was a member of the LGBTQ Committee in Kiryat Tivon and in the last year she was active in the protest against the proposed judicial reforms. Weinberg has two children and a granddaughter. She started the process of affirming her gender about five years ago when she was 60 years old.

“Many people in Kiryat Tivon knew exactly who I was and about my past. It didn’t bother. It seems to me that in certain places it was helpful,” Weinberg told WDG. “The residents of Tivon decided clearly in favor of a liberal, pluralistic and democratic Tivon. I have been a member of Meretz for many years and in these elections we joined a single list with ā€˜Yesh Atidā€™ and ā€˜Our Tivonā€™ and ā€˜Hoze Hadashā€™ (‘New Contract’), a list whose prominent values are equality among all. On the list were the women who founded the LGBT Committee in Tivon that operates with full vigor.”

Despite the historic title as the first trans council member in Israel, Weinberg is not content with just being active in the issues of the LGBTQ community, and aims (to become involved with) the education portfolio in her locality.

“I intend to use this branding to operate in Tivon in two main areas: Education and the LGBT community. Naturally, I see myself as someone who has a well-founded view of education in Tivon and I would be happy to be incharge of the education in Tivon, alongside the LGBT community. I have been teaching all my life. I taught for 35 years in several places, including the University of Haifa, and since the war started I have also been replacing a teacher who went into the reserves voluntarily.

Furthermore, I think I got my foot in the door for trans girls and trans boys. I will of course also continue to act as the chairman of ā€˜Transiot Israelā€™ and at the same time promote the needs of our community, which in the Haifa and Tivon area suffers from a lack of people.

I think I can speak for girls whose life path was less paved than mine. For those girls and boys who were thrown out on the street, out of school, who suffer physical and verbal violence, who are discriminated against economically and socially. And most of all, I would love to hear from my friends in the community and my friends there what the priorities are, not necessarily in Tivon but in Tel Aviv and other places.”

Other candidates from the LGBTQ community won in other municipalities in Israel.

In Tel Aviv-Yafo, Chen Arieli and Moti Reif entered the council for another term, as well as Reut Nagar and Shahar Levy. Assaf Weiss will serve as a council member in Ramat Gan, lawyer Daniela Jacobi in the Ramat Hasharon Council and Ella Kaufman will serve another term on the Kadima Council.

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Middle East

Houthi court sentences 13 people to death for homosexuality in Yemen

Iran-backed rebel group controls large swaths of country

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(Illustration by Peter Hermes Furian/Bigstock)

Reports indicate a court in Yemen has sentenced to death 13 people who had been charged with homosexuality.

Agence France-PresseĀ reportedĀ the court in Ibb Governorate, which Iran-backed Houthi rebels control, announced the sentences on Feb. 4. The province’s main city is roughly 125 miles south of Sanaa, the rebel-held Yemeni capital.

The State Department’s 2022 human rights report notes Yemeni law criminalizes consensual same-sex sexual relations, “with the death penalty as a sanction under the country’s interpretation of Islamic law.” The report also indicates there were “no known executions of LGBTQI+ persons in recent years.”

The Houthis have been attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea since Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, launched a surprise attack against southern Israel from the Gaza Strip. The U.S. and the U.K. last month launched air strikes against the Iran-backed rebel group. 

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