The severed head and decapitated torso of a 25-year-old Palestinian man were discovered on the side of a road in the occupied West Bank, police said on Friday, confirming gruesome details of a killing that shocked Palestinian society.
Accounts that the victim, Ahmad Abu Murkhiyeh, was a gay man who feared persecution for his sexuality and had sought asylum in Israel two years ago turned the terrible crime into a socially and politically explosive case. It was unclear how Abu Murkhiyeh wound up in Hebron, the conservative West Bank city that he had reportedly fled.
Palestinian police officials said that Abu Murkhiyeh’s head and torso were found near his family’s house.
Photo: AP
Police Civil Police Force spokesman Colonel Loay Irzekat said authorities arrested a Palestinian acquaintance of Abu Murkhiyeh as a suspect in the killing, but declined to ascribe a motive or elaborate on their relationship pending the investigation.
Palestinian social media was gripped by the grisly killing, but silent on the question of Abu Murkhiyeh’s sexuality. Homosexuality remains deeply taboo in Palestine, where traditional norms play a prominent role in social and political life.
Still there was plenty of outrage across the West Bank. Graphic footage taken by young Palestinians who happened upon Abu Murkhiyeh’s dismembered body on a hillside rippled through WhatsApp groups, provoking shock and horror, before being taken down.
“This is a very ugly crime,” an older relative, also named Ahmad Abu Murkhiyeh, told the Palestinian radio station al-Karama. “Such a thing should not be discussed.”
Abu Murkhiyeh’s family released a statement of mourning, offering blessings and asking for privacy after “this heinous, unprecedented crime that shook the homeland.”
The family said that Abu Murkhiyeh lived and worked between Hebron and neighboring Jordan, where his late father was from.
As news of Abu Murkhiyeh’s death spread, a starkly different version of events emerged from Israel. LGBTQ organizations and emergency shelters helping gay asylum seekers said they knew he was gay and desperate to escape the Palestinian territories, where he was a target.
Rita Petrenko, founder of Al-Bait al-Mokhtalef, an Israeli gay rights organization catering to the Arab community, said that Abu Murkhiyeh’s fear was distinct when they met in 2020.
“He told me people not only in his family, but in the village wanted to kill him,” she said, adding that he fled to Israel as word of his sexual orientation spread through Hebron two years ago. “He was scared of his brothers, his uncles, his cousins.”
Abu Murkhiyeh bounced around from shelter to shelter and scraped by on occasional restaurant jobs in Tel Aviv, Petrenko said, while she helped him apply for resettlement to Canada.
He had no prospects in Israel. On temporary status, he was barred from working until July last year, when Israel started granting work permits to Palestinians who have sought refuge due to violence and persecution for their sexual orientation, Petrenko said.
“The situation was horrible for all of them,” said Ibtisam Mara’ana-Menuhin, an Arab member of the Israeli Knesset who petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court to grant gay Palestinian asylum seekers work visas.
Israel frequently promotes its tolerance on issues of sexual orientation, despite the rejection of homosexuality in ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities.
However, Tel Aviv is proud of its reputation as a top destination for gay and lesbian travelers.
Critics accuse Israel of “pink-washing,” saying it uses such tolerance as a way to divert attention from its open-ended occupation of the West Bank, now in its 56th year, and its harsh policies toward the Palestinians.
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