Gay man who fled Gaza Strip describes life under Hamas harassment: 'When you're gay, you should hide'
Life in the Gaza Strip today is not easy for anyone, but for LGBT+ residents, the war between Israel and Hamas is just another element that makes life that was already bad worse. Homosexual relations between men are forbidden in the country and being openly queer is socially and religiously unacceptable here.
Abdul (name changed to preserve anonymity), now 27, who has lived in the area for 22 years, knows this too. "It's hard to be gay because I don't feel free in Gaza," he told i24 News last year , describing his life in the country before the war conflict broke out.
Living in fear
"There are a lot of gay people in the Gaza Strip, there are also in Hamas. If you are gay, you should hide. It's really hard. I was crazy scared. Afraid of everything, you know? I was afraid of being beaten, afraid of being kidnapped. I was so scared. I was afraid that Hamas would find out I was gay," Abdul recalls.
Abdul grew up in a refugee camp in a strictly religious Islamic family. He went to mosque every day, like most young boys in Gaza. But his father is a member of Hamas, so Abdul had to be even more careful not to let anyone know his secret. But when he was 17, someone saw him having sex with his boyfriend and reported him to Hamas. He caught him almost immediately.
"They put me in a tiny room that was two metres by two metres. They didn't let me sleep or go to the toilet. There was no food. They tortured me severely. They tied my legs and beat them with sticks."
Repeated torture
But Abdul did not escape the torture even when he was released from prison. "Every few years, I was caught, arrested and tortured in the same way."
Hamas, the terrorist organization that has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007, bans homosexuality and systematically searches the streets to catch anyone who violates the ban. Homosexual activity carries the death penalty. Abdul has been caught several times in the five years since his first imprisonment, tortured again and then released. He wasn't let go completely until he was 22. But first he had to swear on the Koran that he would "never do it again". That he would never be gay again.
But Abdul had nowhere to go. He couldn't go back to his family. So he spent the next two years living on the streets, trying to save enough money to get out of the Gaza Strip. Eventually he managed to escape to Egypt and from there to Turkey, where he lives today. "I paid $1500 to get out of the Gaza Strip and into Egypt".
Although he now lives hundreds of kilometres away from Gaza, he cannot shake the fear of being recognised and recaptured. He also misses his relatives. "I miss my family in Gaza, but I can't go back. I'm scared."
Gay rights in Palestine
But it's not just physical violence that threatens those who fail to conceal their non-heterosexual orientation. The Gaza Strip and the West Bank are some of the most dangerous places in the world for LGBT+ people. LGBT+ people have no state protection from discrimination in Palestine, and 'conversion therapy' is not banned there. According to i24 News, only 5% of West Bank residents accept same-sex relationships. Moreover, there are no statistics on the situation in the Gaza Strip at all. Homosexuality is an absolute taboo here and no one dares to attempt such research.
The dismal situation is also confirmed by data from the Equaldex.com equality rankings, according to which homosexuality is not accepted by 95% of the population in Palestine.
