Israel Targets LGBTQ+ Palestinians for Blackmail As Part of a System of Sexualised Violence, Report Finds

Israeli spies target LGBTQ+ Palestinians for blackmail, according to a new report.

An extract of the report, “A Predatory State: Israeli Systemic Sexualized and Gendered Violence Against Palestinians”, exclusively seen by Novara Media, details instances of “esquat”, a military strategy through which the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) threatens to expose sexualised or gendered information – true or otherwise – about Palestinians that could harm their reputations, credibility and cultural dignity.

This information is collected through invasive widespread surveillance, a documented practice described by former Israeli intelligence agents as “non-stop monitoring by the Israeli Big Brother”, or by luring Palestinians into relationships via ‘honeypot’ schemes. It is then used to coerce or blackmail Palestinians into becoming informants, and sow discord in Palestinian communities and movements.

The report cites 2014 testimony from a former soldier in Unit 8200 – the IDF’s cyberwarfare and military intelligence unit – who said: “Whether said individual is of a certain sexual orientation, cheating on his wife, or in need of treatment in Israel or the West Bank – he is a target for blackmail.” 

In one case study, first published by Drop Site News in 2024, 20-year-old Palestinian university student Adham* recounts being blackmailed by an Israeli intelligence operative after connecting on LGBTQ+ dating app Grindr. The agent repeatedly threatened to expose Adham’s sexuality to his family unless he complied with their demand – to gather intelligence on his cousins, who were held in an Israeli prison and awaiting trial for allegations of involvement in Hamas’s military wing. 

Adham’s testimony in the report states: “He told me that I should go to their homes, search and question their parents and get as much information about them as possible.”

The report covers sexualised violence in Israeli detention and interrogation including forced nudity, sexual humiliation, genital torture, simulated rape, rape with objects and rape by trained dogs – exposed at the notorious Sde Teiman prison – along with the AI-assisted destruction of homes as a form of gendered violence against Palestinian family life, and Israel’s withholding and desecration of Palestinian bodies after death.

Loubna Qutami is part of the Palestinian Feminist Collective, which authored the report, supported by Progressive International. She said: “This violence is not an anomaly or an excess of war, it is a method of Israel’s colonial project.”

Israel has long been accused of ‘pinkwashing’ – using an internationally-projected image of tolerance and equal rights to gloss over its system of colonialism and apartheid over Palestinians, and in the last few years, its genocide in Gaza. A November 2023 post from the state of Israel’s Instagram shows two photos of IDF soldiers – one standing in front of a tank and holding a rainbow Israeli flag, and another in front of the ruins of Gaza with a rainbow flag – with the caption: “The first ever pride flag raised in Gaza.”

In reality, as victims of Israeli military intelligence honeytraps, queer Palestinians have reported homophobic slurs, beatings and interrogations to pressure them into becoming informants for Israel. 

The report finds that queer Palestinians are at particular risk due to a “double bind” belief that “their only options are to either risk their livelihoods and families or betray their people and homeland”, and that fear of exposure causes lasting stress and trauma, impacting intimate relationships. 

The Palestinian Feminist Collective’s report brings together survivor and witness testimony, declassified Israeli archives, Palestinian oral histories, academic research, human rights documentation, press reports and UN reports and statements spanning from the 1948 Nakba to the present-day genocide in Gaza. 

It argues that the scale and consistency of evidence and repetition of standardised methods across different sites point to “institutional practice” on the part of the Israeli state, “rather than individual misconduct”. It concludes that these practices amount to “gross violations of international criminal law, international humanitarian law and international human rights law” and form part of the crime of genocide. 

Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, called the report an “indictment of a system that has transformed Palestinian life – bodies, homes, families, reproductive existence and even the dead – into instruments of control and domination.

“It is time to understand that the crimes against the Palestinians – including the sexualised and gender-based violence meticulously researched and exposed in this report – is not a total sum of isolated abuses, but a system of domination, oppression and erasure.”

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn dubbed the report a call to action, saying it “must be read, shared and acted upon” and “governments that arm, fund or excuse Israel’s crimes must be held to account”. 

It comes after the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel found Israeli authorities and security forces have committed genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza through the deliberate targeting of Palestinian children. 

The UN commission also reported torture and sexual violence perpetrated against Palestinian children, and attacks on healthcare and reproductive facilities leading to newborn death and miscarriages. 

The IDF has been approached for comment. 

*Name changed to protect identity.