How Did a Gay Palestinian Under Israeli Protection Get Beheaded in West Bank?

A gay Palestinian man living under asylum in Israel was murdered and beheaded Wednesday in the West Bank city of Hebron. The unnamed suspect, who was arrested by Palestinian Authority police near the scene of the crime soon after committing it, recorded the act in a video that he uploaded to social media before his capture.

The victim was 25-year-old Ahmad Abu Murkhiyeh, who according to reports on Ynet and Channel 12 had been living in Israel for the past two years as an asylum-seeker after authorities acknowledged his life would be in danger if he returned to Palestinian territory.

It was not immediately clear how or why the young man ended up in Hebron. Friends of Abu Murkhiyeh in Israel believe he was kidnapped to the West Bank before his murder, though it was not clear that they had evidence of this.

A spokesman for the PA police, Lu’ay Arziqat, described the beheading as a “new kind of crime in Palestine” and urged people to refrain from circulating the morbid video.

A presenter for Karama radio station, quoted by the Times of Israel, said the crime had “crossed every single red line in our society, whether in terms of morals, customs, or basic humanity.”

Some 90 Palestinians who identify as LGBT currently live as asylum seekers in Israel, the newspaper said, after suffering discrimination in their home communities. They have only been allowed to seek work in Israel since July.