The Israeli government on Sunday announced a gay man’s sister-in-law and five other hostages were killed in the Gaza Strip before they could be rescued.

The Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry in a press release said members of the Israel Defense Forces on Saturday “located” Carmel Gat’s body. The IDF also found the bodies of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Ori Danino, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi, and Eden Yerushalmi.

The Associated Press said IDF forces found the bodies in a tunnel underneath Rafah, a city in southern Gaza that borders Egypt. Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper, reported Israeli officials said the hostages “were shot at close range” by Hamas militants on Aug. 29 or Aug. 30.

“This is a difficult day for us,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a video message. “Together with all citizens of Israel, I was outraged to the depths of my soul by the horrific, cold-blooded murder of six of our hostages.”

“I say to the Hamas terrorists who murdered our hostages and I say to their leaders: You will pay the price,” he added. “We will not rest, nor will be silent. We will pursue you, we will find you, and we will settle accounts with you.”

Gat was visiting her parents in Be’eri, a kibbutz that is near the border of Israel and Gaza, on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas launched a surprise attack against southern Israel from the Palestinian enclave it governs. 

Hamas militants killed Gat’s parents. 

They kidnapped Gat and her sister-in-law, Yarden Roman, and brought them to Gaza. Roman’s husband, Alon Gat, with their young daughter, Geffen, jumped out of the car in which the militants had placed them and escaped before it drove into Gaza. Hamas, which the U.S. has designated as a terrorist organization, released Roman on Nov. 29, 2023.

The Jerusalem Post reported Carmel Gat, an occupational therapist, while in Gaza taught other hostages yoga and meditation to help them endure their captivity.   

Her brother-in-law, Gili Roman, a teacher who is a member of Israel’s Nemos LGBTQ+ Swimming Club, included a broken heart emoji in a brief email exchange with the Washington Blade on Sunday.

The Israeli government says Hamas militants killed roughly 1,200 people on Oct. 7, including upwards of 370 partygoers and others at an all-night music festival in Re’im, a kibbutz that is a few miles southwest of Be’eri. Carmel Gat was one of the upwards of 250 people who Hamas militants took hostage. 

The Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry says more than 40,000 people have died in the enclave since the war began. 

The Washington Post reported an 11-month-old boy in Gaza contracted polio last month, and there are several other suspected cases. UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, and the World Health Organization on Sunday began a mass polio vaccination campaign.

Hezbollah, which the U.S. and Israel have designated a terrorist organization, has launched rockets from Lebanon into northern Israel. The Houthis have also launched rockets towards Israel and have attacked commercial ships in the Red Sea.

Iran, which backs the Houthis and Hezbollah, on April 13 launched a drone and missile attack against Israel in response to a suspected Israeli air strike killed two Iranian generals in Damascus, Syria. 

An Israeli air strike on July 30 in Beirut killed a senior Hezbollah commander. A suspected Israeli strike in Tehran, Iran, the following day killed Ismail Haniyah, Hamas’s top political leader.

Goldberg-Polin’s parents, Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg, spoke at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Aug. 21.

‘We did not do enough to save our Carmel’

Hundreds of thousands of people on Sunday took to the streets of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and other cities and towns across Israel to demand Netanyahu agree to a ceasefire that would secure the remaining hostages’ release.

Carmel Gat’s family in a statement to the Jerusalem Post on Sunday said it refused to meet with Netanyahu.

“We have no interest in speaking with the person responsible for Carmel’s death or in being part of his media circus,” said the family. “We will not allow him to use us as justification or legitimacy for the murder of the next hostage. The blood of the hostages is on his hands.”

“We did not do enough to save our Carmel,” it added. “We ask that for the memory of Carmel and for the rescue of the hostages still in captivity — take to the streets and shut down the country until everyone comes home.”

A Wider Bridge in an email it sent to supporters on Sunday said “the horrifying news of the Hamas murder of six hostages — Ori Danino, Carmel Gat, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi, and Eden Yerushalmi — cuts deep.” 

“In a sense, they are all our family,” reads the email. “The six were found executed in a tunnel in Rafah as their rescue was becoming a possibility.”

A Wider Bridge said it also “came to know Hersh through his parents’ advocacy, which brought his story and the plight of all the hostages to millions.” The email also notes A Wider Bridge “has also grown close to the family of Carmel Gat” since Oct. 7.

“She was stolen from Kibbutz Be’eri along with her sister-in-law, Yarden,” said A Wider Bridge. “Yarden’s brothers, Gili and Nili, are gay men active in the Israeli LGBTQ community and involved in the hostage families group. They have spoken with our community on several AWB programs. We exhaled a little when Yarden was released from the hellscape in which her cousin remained, and we are devastated by their pain today at the execution of Carmel.” 

WDG is the Washington Blade’s media partner in Israel. This article originally ran on their website on Wednesday.

Tel Aviv-Yafo authorities on Wednesday announced the cancellation of Tel Aviv’s annual Pride parade.

The municipality said it will instead hold a rally as a sign of pride, hope, and freedom.

The decision was made after municipality representatives consulted with LGBTQ community organizations, LGBTQ party promoters and venue owners in the city. Possible alternatives to the Pride parade were discussed. 

Mayor Ron Huldai in a post he published expressed the self-evident reasons for making the change.

“This is not the time for celebrations,” Huldai wrote. “In coordination with the organizations of the LGBTQ community, we decided that this year, instead of the Pride parade, we will hold a rally in Tel Aviv-Yafo as a sign of pride, hope, and freedom. 132 of our sons and daughters are still kidnapped in Gaza, the circle of bereavement is expanding every day, and we are in one of the most difficult periods of the State of Israel.”

“Tel Aviv-Yafo is the home of the LGBTQ community, it was and always will be,” he added. “Out of our great commitment to the community, this year we decided to divert part of the budget intended for the production of the Pride parade in favor of the activities of the ‘LGBTQ Center’ in Tel Aviv-Yafo. We feel the pain of the entire country, and at the same time we do not stop for a moment the fight for equality and freedom — for everyone and everything. See you at the Pride parade in June 2025.”

The coalition of LGBTQ community organizations welcomed the decision.

“We welcome the decision of the Tel Aviv Municipality not to hold the Pride parade as usual this year,” they said. “In these difficult days, when we are all in pain and grieving and when many of our brothers and sisters are not at home, either as evacuees from their homes or kidnapped in Gaza, and our hearts are not whole until they return. It is true that the Pride events will undergo adjustments to the times.” 

“Since time immemorial, the Pride parade in Tel Aviv, in contrast to the other parades and events throughout the country, has been a celebration of freedom, love, and equal rights and now, in these difficult days, it is important to continue to fight for a free and tolerant future even if we avoid the celebration,” they added. “Participation in the various Pride events around the country is more important than ever and we call on all members and members of the gay community and everyone who believes in a liberal, freer, and more just society to get out of the house and take part both in the rally in Tel Aviv and in the various events for the fight for equality and tolerance across the country.”

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 — the biological parent and the non-biological parent — 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 — 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.”