“Israel presents itself as an LGBT haven in the region, but for Palestinians it offers neither refuge nor solidarity”
There is a long, well-documented record of the Israeli security services exploiting the sexuality of LGBTQ+ Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, with devastating and sometimes fatal results.
“During my training course in preparation for my service in this assigned role, we actually learned to memorise and filter different words for ‘gay’ in Arabic,” a member of Israel’s intelligence corps testified a decade ago.
“If you’re homosexual and know someone who knows a wanted person, and we need to know about it, Israel will make your life miserable.”
Last year, a Palestinian from Nablus was publicly executed. He had confessed collaboration with Israel’s domestic intelligence agency Shin Bet, saying they used a video of him having sex with another man to blackmail him into informing.