Kareem’s father was furious when he heard the rumors circulating in Ramallah about the sexuality of his 22-year-old son. “My dad aimed his gun towards me,” Kareem recalled, “and said that if he ever finds out that I’m gay, he would ‘rest a bullet between my eyes.’”
Kareem, whose name has been changed to protect his safety, had lived in the close-knit West Bank city for years, but he’d long known he would one day need to leave. It was March 2024, and the Tel Aviv Court for Administrative Affairs had recently ruled that LGBTQ+ Palestinians can petition for asylum in Israel — upending years of precedent that considered them ineligible. The following month, Kareem crossed into Israel, a country that has occupied the West Bank for
