Lesbian Teenager Killed In Israel In Alleged Hate Crime 

Sarit Ahmed was shot and killed in northern Israel last Friday after receiving death threats from her family members over her sexual orientation. The 18-year-old was shot near the entrance to Yarka, and heavily wounded on her upper body according to Israeli emergency services. 

Ahmed was taken to the Galilee Medical Centre in the nearby city of Nahariya where she was pronounced dead. 

The teenager had previously received death threats from her brothers after she came out as lesbian and had filed complaints against both in 2020, claiming that there had been explicit threats on her life. 

Following the complaint, police submitted a request to Acre Magistrate’s Court to extend the brother’s arrest to up to 18 months in jail. Both brothers were convicted of threatening her life; however, the presiding Judge Ziad Salad only sentenced them to three, and four months in jail, respectively. 

Teenager Had Received Death Threats After Coming Out As Lesbian

According to the Israeli local newspaper Haaretz, a resident of Karasumi, a council around five miles from the shooting, had stated that the teenager had received several death threats from family members and had stayed at a shelter for a few months. 

The 2020 indictment found that Ahmed had “established contact with someone whom the brothers disapproved of,” which resulted in the brothers threatening to end her life. 

Israeli news site Walla reported that Ahmed’s eldest brother announced that he would pay someone about 200,000 shekels (approximately AUD 82,960) to kill her, while he would stay elsewhere in order to provide himself with an alibi. Ahmed’s eldest brother additionally ‘advised’ her to “drink poison” because “it’s better for you,” while the younger brother threatened to stab her in the stomach with a knife. 

The brothers reportedly prevented Ahmed from leaving her home and took her mobile phone away to stop her from contacting her same-sex partner. 

Ahmed was placed in a shelter specifically for girls, where she engaged in a reconciliation process mediated by the police and welfare services to mend ties with her family. Ahmed returned to her family but raised similar experiences of being threatened following the process. 

LGBTQI Community Holds Memorial

Silent protest and memorial at the murder place of Sarit Ahmad Shqur, the 18 year old Queer Druze girl who was murdered yesterday by her family for her sexuality. Rest in power Sarit. pic.twitter.com/e2WQtOznJi

— יונה🌸🕊️🔆Yona (@danido999) June 10, 2023

LGBTQI activists held a silent protest and memorial to honour Sarit’s memory. A Twitter user posted photographs of the memorial at the murder place of the queer Druze teenager. She captioned the post, “Rest in power Sarit.” 

Ahmed was a Druze Israeli, an ethnoreligious minority among the Arab citizens of Israel. The Druze make up 2% of the country’s population and most live in the northern regions of the Galilee, Carmel, and the Golan Heights. 

Chairman of the Association for the LGBT, Hila Par made a public statement following the news of Ahmed’s death, calling it “difficult” to describe the “pain of the murder of the young woman after she received threats on the background of her sexual orientation.” 

Death Of Gay Palestinian In 2022

“It is a sad day for the gay community and the entire Israeli public where such a murder takes place. The tragic loss must shock the welfare and enforcement systems in Israel to provide LGBT people in Arab society with full personal security and to increase the existing torturers. Many and many members of the gay community in Arab society live their lives in the closet, in fear and encounter threats to their lives,” Par said. 

The news of Sarit’s death follows the death of another queer person in Israel in October last year. Twenty-five-year-old gay Palestinian man Ahmad Abu Murkhiyeh was found dead, with his head severed and torso decapitated. 

No arrests have been made by the police and no formal suspects have been identified following Ahmed’s death.