An NPR investigation: A homicide in Hebron

Word: This story comprises graphic descriptions of violence.

HEBRON, West Financial institution — Round sundown on Oct. 5, 2022, two 24-year-old males drank tea on a terrace overlooking the hills of their historic holy metropolis. The night ended with one among them decapitated and the opposite below arrest.

Palestinian regulation enforcement officers in Hebron, the biggest Palestinian metropolis within the Israeli-occupied West Financial institution, say they’ve witnessed many crime scenes, however by no means one with a severed head. Town’s historic core — a militarized zone with Palestinians, Israeli settlers and the tomb of the patriarch Abraham, revered by them each — has seen a number of the ugliest violence and injustices of the Israeli-Palestinian battle, however that was not this story.

Photos of the crime scene rapidly unfold on social media, as did the suspect’s final title. A mall and butcher store belonging to the suspect’s prolonged household had been vandalized. “A horrific crime,” learn one Palestinian information headline. The Palestinian police referred to as it a “new type of crime to be seen in the Palestinian areas.” A Palestinian discuss present requested the sufferer’s cousin what occurred. “This thing,” he mentioned, “cannot be discussed in the media.”

In Israel, information of the homicide was reported very in another way. “Kidnapped to the Palestinian Authority territories and murdered because of his sexual orientation,” learn one Israeli report. “A bloody reminder of the LGBTQ situation in the Palestinian Authority,” learn one other.

Ahmad Abu Markhiya was amongst a uncommon group of Palestinians from the West Financial institution granted the momentary proper to reside in Israel: these deemed to face threats to their lives as a result of they’re homosexual.

His ugly homicide acquired worldwide consideration after which light from headlines. Throughout the Gaza struggle, it has come to mild once more. Professional-Israel campaigns have cited his killing for example of Palestinian savagery. Professional-Palestinian advocates say Israel weaponizes homosexual rights to distract from its actions in Gaza.

A one-and-a-half-year NPR investigation into the life and homicide of Abu Markhiya — drawing from police information, courtroom paperwork and greater than 40 interviews in Israel and the West Financial institution — reveals a much more complicated net of circumstances surrounding the killing than has beforehand been reported.

That is the story of a person in the hunt for house, caught between two societies that by no means absolutely granted him one. For some, his homicide was to be weighed in opposition to the disgrace he brought on in life. For others, his homicide robbed him of the possibility to extricate himself from a society that refused him dignity and freedom.

Our investigation traces the sufferer’s escape from the West Financial institution to Israel, probes the thriller of what drew him again and identifies his accused killer for the primary time. It additionally explores the parallel justice programs — official and conventional — which have examined his homicide however have but to resolve it.

Two years — and one struggle — later, justice stays deferred for Ahmad Abu Markhiya.

Half 1: The advocates

It was the spring of 2021, a 12 months and a half earlier than his homicide, when Abu Markhiya despatched a Fb message asking for assist.

Rita Petrenko answered it. On the time, she ran The Completely different Home, an Israeli nonprofit group advocating on behalf of LGBTQ+ Palestinians looking for security in Israel. Homosexuality is basically shunned in Palestinian society. Palestinians contacted her to say they had been fleeing life-threatening persecution from their households, and she or he helped them safe official papers to remain in Israel.

Abu Markhiya advised her he had been on the run from metropolis to metropolis within the West Financial institution for greater than a 12 months, ever since his uncle caught him being intimate with one other younger man, and males in his household beat him. (His household denies it threatened him.)

He advised Petrenko he fled to the streets of Hebron, then to the West Financial institution cities of Beitunia, Ramallah and Tulkarem, as males in his household pursued him. He advised her a relative opened fireplace on his automotive, so he took the chance of slipping by Israel’s community of concrete partitions, wire fences and army checkpoints — constructed after a wave of Palestinian bombings in Israel twenty years in the past and designed to manage Palestinian entry into Israel. Then he slept in a Tel Aviv parking zone for 2 weeks.

In a earlier life in her native Russia, Petrenko labored for the police, coaching canine to detect clues at crime scenes, so she thought of herself a very good lie detector. She believed there have been some Palestinians who pretended to be homosexual to hunt asylum overseas — and others who had been certainly homosexual and fabricated threats from their household to realize entry to Israel and reside a freer life. However Abu Markhiya’s story struck her as credible. It did not appear probably he would undergo weeks on the streets to again up a false story. “That’s not a life worth making something up for,” she mentioned.

Palestinians and Israelis who knew him say there was little doubt he was homosexual.

Petrenko submitted Abu Markhiya’s testimony to the Israeli protection unit that grants Palestinians permits, and officers summoned him to an interview at a army facility. They concluded that sending him again to the West Financial institution would put him in danger.

However Israel wouldn’t grant him everlasting asylum as a Palestinian. Traditionally, Israel has granted non-Jews asylum solely in uncommon circumstances. It’s particularly against an inflow of Palestinians. However through the years, Israel has taken in Palestinians who spied for Israeli safety companies and wanted cowl, and in the previous few years, it has granted safety to a few hundred Palestinians going through threats to their lives within the West Financial institution due to their gender or sexuality.

Israel granted Abu Markhiya a brief residency allow, given that he apply for resettlement overseas by the Workplace of the United Nations Excessive Commissioner for Refugees. On June 1, 2021, Petrenko utilized to the UNHCR on Abu Markhiya’s behalf. She hoped Canada or Australia would settle for him, as they’d taken in Palestinian LGBTQ+ asylum-seekers in distinctive circumstances. However different classes of Palestinians gave the impression to be given precedence, she mentioned, like folks with tutorial levels and girls going through rapid threats to their lives. (The UNHCR mentioned it doesn’t touch upon particular person resettlement requests.)

Whereas Abu Markhiya waited for a solution, he lived in at-risk-youth shelters and labored restaurant jobs illegally. On the time, Israel wouldn’t grant LGBTQ+ Palestinians work permits or well being care. Given their tenuous standing, many homosexual Palestinian asylum-seekers had been coerced by their circumstances into intercourse work. Israeli welfare applications provided them — together with Abu Markhiya — housing and rehabilitation applications to flee sexual exploitation, mentioned Asma Alssaad, one among his shelter counselors.

In Israel, Abu Markhiya selected the nickname Esso. Alssaad mentioned it was Arabic for Esau, the grandson of Abraham in Islamic and Jewish custom. “Many young Palestinians who escape to Israel choose an alias for themselves. It serves the purpose of dividing between the life they used to have in the West Bank and the life they have in Israel. Of course, it’s also for reasons of confidentiality,” Alssaad mentioned.

Israeli shelter volunteers mentioned Abu Markhiya was extra mature than different younger residents. He was clean-shaven and well-groomed, and he saved his locker organized.

He had plans for his future.

“To rent a house with a friend. To be loved,” mentioned Maiyan Value Zohar, 28, his major Israeli counselor on the shelter. “He wanted to live.”

In the summertime of 2022, an Israeli Supreme Courtroom petition by human rights teams prompted Israel to grant work rights and well being care to LGBTQ+ Palestinians with Israeli permits. By then, Abu Markhiya had been in Israel for a 12 months. Israeli protection officers renewed his allow however sought solutions from the UNHCR: How for much longer would it not take to resettle him overseas?

In late August 2022, Petrenko requested the UNHCR to expedite Abu Markhiya’s request for resettlement. Out of all of the Palestinians she represented, he had waited the longest. He was receiving threatening calls and was keen to maneuver overseas.

Weeks later, Abu Markhiya was useless.

The day after his homicide, his group of homosexual Palestinian asylum-seekers and their Israeli advocates held a small memorial ceremony in Tel Aviv. They lit candles arrayed to spell out his title, Ahmad, in Hebrew.

His counselors and mates on the shelter had been distraught: How did he disappear from Israel to the Palestinian metropolis of Hebron? They had been sure he would have by no means gone willingly to the identical metropolis the place he was below risk.

Many had been satisfied he was kidnapped or lured there, and all had been satisfied his killing was an anti-gay assault. However the Israeli police didn’t contact them to hunt their testimony. They heard no phrase about any formal investigation, nor did they anticipate to. His Israeli counselors did not suppose Israeli police would care a few homicide of a Palestinian within the Palestinian territories, and so they did not suppose Palestinian police would trouble to research the homicide of a homosexual man.

“It’s a black hole,” mentioned Ofir Zweigenbom, one among Abu Markhiya’s Israeli counselors.

Within the twilight zone between Abu Markhiya’s conditional life in Israel and ugly demise within the West Financial institution, they thought there would by no means be solutions.

Half 2: The prosecutor

What his supporters in Israel didn’t know was that the chief Palestinian prosecutor of Hebron was urgent prices in opposition to the suspected assassin.

In a gleaming new limestone courthouse funded by the Canadian authorities, Nashat Ayoush sat at a big desk wearing a white shirt and tie, in entrance of framed photographs of the late Palestinian Authority chief Yasser Arafat and the present chief, Mahmoud Abbas.

Ayoush had spent his complete profession within the Palestinian state prosecutor’s workplace, a part of the civil justice system arrange within the Nineties, as Palestinians constructed the establishments they hoped would ultimately type the core of a rustic unbiased from Israel.

He collected all the small print of Abu Markhiya’s homicide — witness testimony, the post-mortem and a photograph of the 24-year-old defendant taken shortly after his arrest — in an orange file folder held collectively by a black twine, Legal File 2725/2022.

The night of the homicide, in accordance with a replica of the indictment obtained by NPR, a household of 4 heard a commotion outdoors the previous stone home they had been renting in Hebron. “When they looked out of their window, a few meters from the crime scene, they saw the suspect stabbing the victim with a knife in his neck and then dragging him,” the indictment says.

They referred to as their landlord, Mohammed Abu Eisheh, a revered dentist who lived in a stately home subsequent door. He rushed house from his dental clinic downtown and alerted police, who arrived moments later. They discovered a younger man standing below an oak tree subsequent to a decapitated physique. “Upon seeing the police, he attempted to flee but was arrested, his hands and clothes stained with blood,” the indictment says.

It was the dentist’s son, Anas Abu Eisheh. The crime befell in his yard. “We caught him red-handed,” Ayoush mentioned.

A path of blood ran from a storage room hooked up to the stone home, the place the sufferer was killed, to the aspect of a hill below the oak tree some 20 yards away, the place Anas Abu Eisheh had dragged the physique and tried to cover it, in accordance with the indictment.

The reason for demise, in accordance with the post-mortem report reviewed by NPR, was 10 stab wounds to the chest and decrease neck. Solely after he died had he been beheaded.

“It was a shock for us,” Ayoush mentioned.

As information experiences unfold a few homosexual Palestinian homicide case in Hebron, officers from the Workplace of the United Nations Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights raised the case with Ayoush, and a U.S. diplomat inquired with the Palestinian Authority’s legal professional basic. The Palestinian Authority has lengthy been scrutinized for lax prosecution of household violence in opposition to ladies and ladies. A ugly anti-LGBTQ+ killing could be a stain on the Palestinian management, which was reliant on worldwide help.

“We explained to them that our investigations did not indicate any link between his being gay and the murder,” Ayoush mentioned. In truth, Ayoush mentioned, the query of the sufferer’s sexuality by no means got here up within the Palestinian police interrogations, regardless of all of the press experiences alleging Abu Markhiya had confronted anti-gay threats within the West Financial institution. Homosexuality is taboo within the West Financial institution’s conventional Palestinian society, however it’s not outlawed, he advised us repeatedly.

Documented anti-gay killings are uncommon within the West Financial institution. LGBTQ+ advocates say some killings are framed as accidents. Others are shrouded in accusations of treason. Six months after Abu Markhiya’s homicide, a 23-year-old Palestinian was killed by militants who accused him of spying for Israel. In a purported confession video, he claimed Israeli brokers blackmailed him with video footage of him having intercourse with one other man.

In 2014, an nameless group of former Israeli intelligence officers mentioned they had been instructed to extort homosexual Palestinians to spy for Israel or be uncovered.

In 2019, after years of quiet activism, the Palestinian queer group alQaws staged a public demonstration in Haifa, a metropolis in Israel with a big progressive Arab group, to protest the stabbing of a homosexual teenage Palestinian citizen of Israel. Weeks later, Palestinian police banned the queer group from holding occasions within the West Financial institution, saying it violated Palestinian values.

The Palestinian activist group noticed this public battle as progress; there have been different international locations within the area that had no queer organizing in any respect.

However then the group confronted a setback within the months earlier than Abu Markhiya’s homicide. Vigilantes within the West Financial institution attacked a venue internet hosting an brazenly homosexual Palestinian singer and disrupted a march perceived to be related to the homosexual group. Palestinian police didn’t prosecute the suspects. The Palestinian LGBTQ+ activist group has maintained a low profile ever since. No queer group within the West Financial institution issued a press release about Abu Markhiya’s homicide.

The chairman of the Palestinian Psychiatric Affiliation, Dr. Tawfiq Salman, has endorsed West Financial institution households whose youngsters have come out as homosexual in recent times. “I’m convincing the families how to accept their sons, their daughters, as they are,” he mentioned. “They have to deal without violence.” He mentioned one consumer mentioned he was transferring his household to the U.S. to guard his homosexual son from repercussions from his group.

In our conversations with Abu Eisheh, he didn’t deny his son Anas, a regulation scholar at Hebron College, killed Abu Markhiya. However he mentioned the killing had nothing to do with homosexuality. He mentioned that his son, a longtime pal of Abu Markhiya, was mentally in poor health — and that Abu Markhiya was guilty.

Just a few years prior, he mentioned, Abu Markhiya had given Anas medication, which he claimed induced schizophrenia that his son was handled for with antipsychotics. Abu Eisheh mentioned his son started participating in violent outbursts in opposition to his household. He believes on the day of the homicide, Abu Markhiya gave his son an unlawful substance that interacted along with his medicines, triggering a psychotic episode that resulted within the ugly crime. His son advised investigators he had no recollection of the killing.

NPR was unable to confirm that Anas was being handled for psychological sickness on the time of the crime. Abu Eisheh supplied two psychiatric experiences citing his son’s aggressive conduct and non secular delusions about resembling an Islamic messianic determine, however one doc was dated three years earlier than the killing and the opposite, written on the request of the household, was dated three days after the homicide.

Salman, the psychiatric affiliation chairman, mentioned some Palestinian homicide suspects’ households declare psychological sickness to guard the household’s fame and stop revenge killings. Ayoush, the Hebron prosecutor, mentioned the suspect’s motive on this homicide case was irrelevant.

“We have sufficient proof against him. … We are not obliged by Palestinian law to search for the motive,” Ayoush mentioned. He mentioned he was treating the case like every other. That was the essence of justice he hoped to show the Palestinian authorities would be capable to pursue.

On March 29, 2023, the Palestinian public prosecutor charged Anas Abu Eisheh with premeditated homicide. The prosecutor mentioned it was a criminal offense punishable by life imprisonment.

NPR attended a listening to on the Hebron First Occasion Courtroom on Sept. 6, 2023, 5 months into the proceedings. The courtroom was coated in smooth picket paneling, and the decide sat excessive atop a raised bench. The temper was tense: Guards had been unfold all through the room, separating the defendant’s brother and the sufferer’s cousin.

Abu Eisheh, handcuffed and flanked by extra guards, was ushered into the defendant’s glass cage. He stood tall and appeared attentive however confirmed no emotion. In a raised voice, the counsel for the prosecution learn the cost in opposition to him.

Earlier that 12 months, the defendant had been transferred from detention in Hebron to a Bethlehem psychiatric hospital for an examination. The decide had requested a psychiatric analysis as as to if the defendant was conscious of his actions on the time of the crime. The decide learn aloud the hospital’s response: It was inconclusive. The decide ordered the hospital to conduct a repeat psychiatric analysis, and courtroom was adjourned.

Outdoors the partitions of the courthouse, a unique sort of justice was being pursued.

Half 3: The justice programs

Sheikh Walid Tawil sat in his downtown Hebron workplace carrying a brown scarf with gold embroidered trim, a red-and-white-checked keffiyeh headband and a thick gold and silver watch. In his fingers he held a chunky chain of shiny picket prayer beads. He’s a member of the Tawil tribe, one among 176 tribes or household clans current in Hebron. The 52-year-old sheikh leads an ultrareligious Islamic life — 4 wives, 20 youngsters — and is a central determine in a parallel justice system of group reconciliation referred to as sulh.

The custom, practiced since earlier than the creation of recent Palestinian prison courts, facilities on the asha’er, the household clans that play highly effective roles in Palestinian society. Crimes between people change into disputes between households. The purpose is to forestall retaliation, assign accountability, restore civil peace and reintroduce the offending household again into society.

4 days after Abu Markhiya’s homicide, Tawil presided over a big mediation ceremony because the consultant of the defendant’s household. One other sheikh, Fayez Al-Rajabi, represented the sufferer’s household.

The 2 males brokered the standard one-year atwa — a written act of contrition and a truce to forestall a blood feud between the households. The defendant’s household paid the sufferer’s household the usual compensation of 100,000 Jordanian dinars, the equal of about $141,000 — a sum pegged to the foreign money of Jordan, which dominated the West Financial institution earlier than Israel occupied it. The 2 households agreed to carry negotiations to find out whether or not the sufferer’s household was owed any extra money, to be able to attain a remaining reconciliation earlier than the truce expired a 12 months in a while Oct. 9, 2023.

Not like the Palestinian civil justice system, which performed down the query of homosexuality on this homicide case, the standard system appeared to put it entrance and middle.

“Gays have no rights in society, religion or family,” Tawil advised us. The Quran condemns intercourse between males, in accordance with conventional readings of the textual content, and a few sayings attributed to the Prophet Muhammad prescribe the demise penalty for it, however Islamic students have debated the subject for hundreds of years.

Tawil was not suggesting that Abu Markhiya was killed due to his sexuality. However proving that he was homosexual could be a mitigating circumstance for the perpetrator. It may compel the sufferer’s household to drop any additional calls for for monetary compensation and to achieve a remaining decision.

“We are an Islamic society in Hebron,” the sheikh mentioned. “If the victim has a bad reputation, the reconciliation fee is less.”

Each Palestinian justice programs, official and conventional, search to keep away from strife between household clans. A compromise between the households is preferable. Regardless of the households resolve within the conventional arbitration course of impacts the sentencing within the official prison case. With a murder, a household reconciliation settlement can cut back a jail sentence by a 3rd, in accordance with Ayoush, the prosecutor.

The primary time we met, Abu Eisheh, the defendant’s father, welcomed us into his dental clinic in downtown Hebron. He sat behind his desk carrying blue scrubs. The wall subsequent to him was coated in diplomas and certificates.

He didn’t condone the homicide. However it was a household feud to resolve, and rumors in regards to the sufferer’s sexuality gave the defendant’s household the benefit.

“When the event took place, everyone denounced it and were very upset with the event, with Anas,” his father mentioned.

That modified when the Israeli media reported that Abu Markhiya was a homosexual asylum-seeker.

“The Israeli media provided us with a free service and broadcasted videos and broadcasted reports that the boy was gay. Within 24 hours … the entire public opinion flipped from being against Anas to being with Anas. The pressure let up on us a lot, as a family,” Abu Eisheh mentioned.

He let loose a small snicker.

“If we prove that Ahmad is gay, the problem will resolve more easily,” Abu Eisheh defined. He mentioned the sufferer’s household “will try to finish the issue quickly because this would be considered a shame for the family.”

On the outskirts of Hebron, on the aspect of a scraggly mound and up a set of uncovered concrete steps, is the small house of Awatef Abu Markhiya, Ahmad Abu Markhiya’s mom. His father died some years in the past, and she or he remarried. She has the identical angular jaw and almond-shaped eyes as her late son.

Her household suggested her not to talk about her son’s homicide. No matter she mentioned may prejudice the reconciliation negotiations.

“Ahmad had a very, very good heart,” she mentioned. She cried, describing a beloved son, and repeatedly denied he was homosexual.

“We know he was not gay,” Al-Rajabi, the Abu Markhiya household’s arbitrator within the mediation, advised us. “We don’t have homosexuality in Hebron. This is Abraham’s city.”

Half 4: The pal

Why did Abu Markhiya return to town he had fled?

“I know the whole story from the beginning to the end,” a person in his early 20s from Hebron advised NPR in the summertime of 2023.

This younger man was each a pal of the sufferer and a relative of the defendant. He spoke on situation of anonymity as a result of he’s additionally homosexual and had run away from house after the homicide, afraid of being focused for his sexuality.

He mentioned Abu Markhiya had been haunted by a case of blackmail from the time he fled to Israel till the top of his life.

He mentioned there was a person in Hebron who had pursued Abu Markhiya for intercourse and threatened to launch an intimate picture of him. Abu Markhiya knew the person personally and complained to the police three weeks earlier than fleeing to Israel, and he filed a further criticism in opposition to the alleged blackmailer a number of months later, in accordance with police data reviewed by NPR.

In a cellphone interview with NPR, the alleged blackmailer, whom NPR will not be naming as a consequence of attainable repercussions in opposition to him given the extreme taboos within the West Financial institution in opposition to homosexuality, mentioned he was detained and denied the allegations, and he mentioned that his household satisfied Abu Markhiya to withdraw the criticism just a few weeks earlier than his homicide.

Abu Markhiya arrived in Hebron. His household mentioned that he was there to hunt Palestinian medical insurance protection for a work-related harm (on the time, it was nonetheless troublesome for homosexual Palestinian asylum-seekers to entry Israeli well being care) and that he meant to withdraw his police criticism (although the Hebron prosecutor’s workplace mentioned he didn’t find yourself withdrawing it). He advised his household he wanted to settle his affairs as a result of he deliberate to maneuver overseas. His advocate in Israel — Rita Petrenko — had requested the U.N. to expedite his resettlement request.

Hours earlier than the homicide, the younger man mentioned he noticed Abu Markhiya: He had gotten a haircut in downtown Hebron. Then he went to fulfill Abu Eisheh.

The younger man mentioned that Abu Eisheh had additionally been pursuing Abu Markhiya, eager to be in an intimate relationship collectively and promising to guard him, however that Abu Markhiya refused.

It stays unclear why the 2 met that night and what compelled the killer to homicide and behead Abu Markhiya. The accused killer’s household denies that Abu Eisheh is homosexual or that his relationship to the sufferer was extra than simply friendship.

However what compelled Abu Markhiya to return to town he had escaped seems to have been the hope of tying up unfastened ends and getting a recent begin.

Half 5: The struggle

On Oct. 7, 2023, virtually precisely one 12 months after Abu Markhiya’s homicide, Hamas carried out the deadliest single assault on Israelis in historical past, and Israel started its deadliest Gaza offensive in historical past.

Within the world debate over the Gaza struggle, LGBTQ+ rights have taken middle stage. Teams like Queers for Palestine have been a fixture at anti-war rallies, accusing Israel of embracing homosexual rights to “pinkwash” struggle crimes.

Israel’s advocates have fired again, criticizing queer protesters for condemning Israel moderately than Hamas Islamists, who reject homosexual rights. “Some of these protesters hold up signs proclaiming gays for Gaza,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu advised a joint assembly of U.S. Congress in July. “They might as well hold up signs saying ‘Chickens for KFC.'”

Abu Markhiya’s story has been resurrected on this firestorm by pro-Israel campaigns on-line. Certainly one of them, Queer in Gaza, cites his killing and states: “Protect LGBT Palestinians. Only Israel does.”

Throughout the struggle, Israel revoked all Palestinians’ permits in Israel, citing safety considerations. In a survey of 73 Palestinian LGBTQ+ asylum-seekers, carried out three months into the struggle by the Affiliation for LGBTQ Equality in Israel, most mentioned they misplaced their jobs, had been assaulted and had been arrested. Some mentioned they had been additionally deported to the West Financial institution. Human rights teams intervened, and Israel reversed the deportations of protected LGBTQ+ Palestinians.

The struggle additionally introduced sweeping Israeli crackdowns to the West Financial institution, placing the Abu Markhiya homicide proceedings right into a deep freeze.

About six months had handed since Abu Eisheh was charged with premediated homicide for the killing and beheading of Abu Markhiya. Ayoush, the Hebron prosecutor heading up the case, couldn’t attain his personal courthouse for a month as a consequence of Israeli roadblocks. (He was later reassigned to a different function within the justice system and is not on the case.) Legal professionals had been saved ready hours at Israeli checkpoints when touring from one metropolis to a different. The Palestinian Bar Affiliation went on strike for six months as a result of motion restrictions. Neither the accused assassin nor his lawyer appeared at courtroom hearings throughout that point.

The courtroom proceedings are nonetheless dragging on, with no progress a 12 months and a half after they started. Abu Eisheh stays in a Hebron detention middle, the place he’s allowed weekly household visits. Whether or not as a consequence of a excessive sensitivity round this homicide, incompetence, indifference or another purpose, the Bethlehem psychiatric hospital has not heeded repeated courtroom requests to submit an analysis of the defendant and whether or not he’s match to face trial. In Might, the director of the hospital advised NPR, “We will contact the court soon.”

To this present day, it has not submitted its analysis.

Whereas the official West Financial institution prison justice system was paralyzed in the beginning of the Gaza struggle, the standard justice system thrived. Contemporary tragedies sidelined older ones, and households resolved pending disputes. The struggle provided a chance to place the Abu Markhiya homicide case to relaxation as properly.

The atwa, the truce between the Abu Markhiya and Abu Eisheh households, had expired on Oct. 9, 2023, two days into the struggle. On Oct. 16, the Abu Eisheh household paid a go to to the Abu Markhiya household house. They requested the sufferer’s household to reconcile, however the sufferer’s household demanded extra money as compensation for the homicide. The 2 sides agreed to convene a council of metropolis dignitaries to achieve a remaining reconciliation, saq al-sulh, by January 2024.

That committee has by no means convened.

Sheikh Tawil, the Abu Eisheh household’s arbitrator, was not involved. He was assured the Abu Markhiya household wouldn’t search revenge or extra money. He was satisfied by the paperwork testifying to the defendant’s psychological sickness, and he held up his cellphone to point out us Israeli information articles that recognized the sufferer as homosexual and photographs of the memorial candles in Tel Aviv spelling out his title, Ahmad, in Hebrew.

“This of course in our society is completely forbidden. We cannot allow any homosexual person to have any kind of rights in society,” he mentioned.

The arbitrator for the Abu Markhiya household insists the case stays unsettled. However convening a council of metropolis dignitaries would solely resurface the central query of the unresolved case — whether or not Abu Markhiya was homosexual. Answering that query may danger the household’s fame by affiliation. It additionally would weaken the household’s capacity to make additional claims for accountability for his or her son’s homicide.

By this logic, in Hebron’s communal justice system, the scales at the moment are balanced.

“Ahmad deserves accountability and he deserves dignity,” mentioned Sa’ed Atshan, an affiliate professor at Swarthmore School and a Palestinian LGBTQ+ human rights advocate who authored a ebook on queer Palestinians and has been following the homicide case. “What a travesty. He was so close to freedom.”

Half 6: The home

One spring night, a number of months into the struggle, Abu Eisheh walked throughout his rocky yard to the previous stone home the place the homicide befell. An Israeli warplane rumbled within the sky; Hebron is a brief distance from Gaza.

It was sundown, across the similar time his son drank tea with Abu Markhiya on the terrace earlier than the stabbing. From there, the younger males had regarded out onto an expansive view of the hilly metropolis.

On the horizon had been the onion domes of Hebron’s Russian Orthodox church, town’s solely surviving church. Hundreds of years in the past, in accordance with custom, the patriarch Abraham got here to town and pitched his tent close to an oak tree that also stands on the church grounds.

A a lot youthful oak tree marks the spot the place the sufferer’s head and physique had been discovered. He was buried within the middle of Hebron, not removed from the tomb of Abraham.

Almost two years have handed since Ahmad Abu Markhiya was killed. His mom, Awatef, nonetheless denies he was homosexual. She nonetheless doesn’t know why he was killed or whether or not the homicide case will ever be laid to relaxation. She prays for justice of a unique sort.

“In the end,” she mentioned, “justice comes from God.”