Queer in Gaza:
The Reality
Learn the Facts about Hamas' treatment of LGBT Palestinians.
Fact 1
Living as a Queer person in Gaza is punishable by torture and death by Hamas, the rulers of Gaza.
Fact 2
There is no transgender population in Gaza because any trans person who lives openly will be hunted down by Hamas.
Fact 3
Israel grants asylum rights to LGBT Palestinians who face death in Gaza and the Palestinian Territories; there are hundreds of Queer Palestinians living safely in Israel right now, who will face death if they are sent back to Gaza or the Palestinian Territories.
“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.”
“Mr. Ishtiwi, 34, was a commander from a storied family of Hamas loyalists… Last month, his former comrades executed him with three bullets to the chest. He was accused of moral turpitude, by which Hamas meant homosexuality.”
Palestinian police have arrested a suspect in the killing of a 25-year-old man after his body was found decapitated in the occupied West Bank. LGBTQ groups say he had spent two years in Israel waiting on an asylum claim to flee abroad after receiving death threats from within his community.
Palestinian Authority police have banned a Palestinian LGBT rights group from organizing any activities in the West Bank and threatened to arrest them, saying such activities are contrary to the “values of Palestinian society.”
“As a Queer Palestinian, I fled to Israel for protection.”
Yet some misguided people are supporting Hamas while claiming to support Queer lives.
They are putting Queer Palestinians in danger!
The same terrorist groups that began war with Israel on October 7th have been terrorizing their own people first — LGBT Gazans, women, and political dissidents.
Palestinian civilians in Gaza are speaking out against Hamas' war crimes, which have brought bloodshed to the people of Gaza. Listen to their voices and learn more @PeaceComCenter.
LGBT freedoms and tolerance are a mark of progress; there are no countries in the Arab or Muslim world where gay and transgender people can live as openly as they can in Israel. This matters for Queer lives!
Did you know? Israel grants asylum to hundreds of LGBT Palestinians who would be in grave danger if Israel did not exist. This means hundreds of the most marginalized lives are saved.
Israel has thriving Muslim and Christian minorities who support Israel, serve at the highest level of civil society, and proudly serve in the Israeli military (the IDF).
Israel has been the indigenous home of the Jewish people for thousands of years, and has been ethnically cleansed of Jews for many centuries by occupying forces, from the Romans to the Ottomans. Anybody claiming otherwise is lying and manipulating you.
Do NOT support anti-LGBT hate!
Set the record straight, and oppose Hamas brutality against Queer Palestinians.