In a crime labeled as one the most heinous crimes committed in the Palestinian territories in years, the Palestinian police in the West Bank found Oct. 5 the decapitated body of Ahmed Abu Markhiya, 25, with several stab wounds, in the city of Hebron in the southern West Bank.
Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported that Abu Markhiya had been living in Israel in the town of Gush Dan for two years, awaiting the acceptance of his asylum application to Canada. Israel had granted Abu Markhiya, who was gay, a humanitarian permit because he had been subject to repeated death threats in his hometown in the West Bank over his sexual identity.
