Shock, questions after gruesome killing of gay Palestinian

By ISABEL DEBRE
Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) — The gruesome killing of a 25-year-old Palestinian man, whose decapitated torso was found in the West Bank city of Hebron, has shocked Palestinian society. But accounts that the victim was a gay man who had sought asylum in Israel has turned the tragedy into a socially and politically explosive case. It was unclear how he had wound up in Hebron, the conservative West Bank city that he had reportedly fled. Homosexuality remains deeply taboo in the Palestinian territories, where traditional norms play a prominent role in social and political life.