Terror strikes South Africa's LGBTQ+ community: Muhsin Hendricks, recognized globally as history's first openly gay imam, was fatally shot in the city of Kabarha in the southern region of the country, according to an announcement from the Australian government.

The imam, who operated a mosque that served as a safe haven for LGBTQ+ Muslims, was traveling in his vehicle accompanied by another individual when their path was blocked by a car. Armed assailants emerged and opened fire, killing Hendricks. According to the police statement, "Two unidentified suspects with covered faces fired multiple shots at the vehicle. The driver fled the scene and only later noticed that Hendricks, who was in the back seat, had been shot and killed."

BREAKING:

A video has been released of yesterday's Islamist terror attack in South Africa in which killed the world's first openly gay imam.

Muhsin Hendricks ran a mosque in Cape Town intended as a safe haven for gay & marginalised Muslims.

He was murdered in an ambush. pic.twitter.com/obZvM4BzGi

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) February 16, 2025

Though police authorities maintain the motive remains unclear, South Africa's LGBTQ+ community is certain this was a targeted terror attack. Security camera footage circulating on social media platforms documents the shooting incident.

Hendricks founded his mosque in 2011 to provide a sanctuary and prayer space for Muslims who had been ostracized from their communities due to their sexual orientation. The Ghurbaah Mosque, located in Cape Town's Wynberg neighborhood, garnered extensive media coverage as history's first Muslim center offering an inclusive environment for LGBTQ+ members.

"I told myself that perhaps it was time we created our own space, where people could pray without being judged," Hendricks told The Guardian at the time. His decision to establish the mosque came after a friend shared his experience of being forced to listen to an extended sermon condemning homosexuality at his regular mosque.

The post First gay imam murdered in South Africa appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

In February, the Supreme Court ruled in February that excluding gay couples from surrogacy was unconstitutional, giving the government a year to amend a 2018 law that brought tens of thousands of LGBTQ people and their supporters onto the streets.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter 

On Tuesday the ruling coalition rejected a private member's bill that would have lifted the ban, leading Nissenkorn to promise a law to "ensure equality and right of parenthood to every citizen" would be introduced in 2020.

LGBTQ advocates said they were disappointed, particularly after Blue and had promised to support surrogacy for gay couples.

"It's very hard to trust them, because we've been disappointed by them so many times in the past," Julien Bahloul, the spokesman for the Association of Israeli Gay Fathers, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.

Israel is one of the most liberal countries for LGBTQ rights in the Middle East, where most states outlaw gay sex and some impose the death penalty. Israel recognizes same-sex weddings performed abroad and children adopted overseas by, or born to surrogates for, gay parents. Adoption within the country of 9 million is close to impossible for gay couples, according to advocates.

The country now has a record high of six openly gay lawmakers, after Yorai Lahav Hertzanu, a member of the opposition, was sworn in last week.

Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!

The post LGBTQ campaigners in Israel doubt gov't will legalize surrogacy for gay couples appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

The city's mayor, Ron Huldai announced the decision to coincide with Pride Week in Israel.

   Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

The new policy will allow couples to obtain housing tax reductions and other benefits, including child daycare services.

"In honor of Pride Week, we have decided to challenge the government and allow couples to declare their union," Huldai said in a statement posted to Facebook.

"We hope the government will also enter the 21st century and uphold the rights of the LGBT community in law... the right to marry, have equal parental responsibilities, be protected from hate crimes along with workplace bullying, and more."

Although gay marriage is not illegal, the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, which has jurisdiction over marriage services in the country, refuses to perform or recognize such unions.

Couples who cannot or refuse to have their marriages consecrated by the Chief Rabbinate can choose to have civil, interfaith, and same-sex unions performed abroad, usually in neighboring Cyprus. The state will then legally recognize the marriage after couples register their union with Israel's Ministry of Interior.

Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!

Although designed primarily for LGBT couples, the change in marriage policy would also allow secular couples and those who oppose religious marriages to be recognized as married without having to leave the country.

This article was originally published by i24NEWS.

The post Tel Aviv mayor says city to recognize same-sex marriages appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Some 10,000 revelers waving rainbow flags joined the carnival-like procession, as over 2,500 police officers in plain clothes, in uniform and on horseback patrolled the crowd.

"Homosexuals, lesbians, transgenders. Jerusalem is mine too," marchers chanted.

The gay community's visibility in conservative Jerusalem tends to draw vocal protest from members of the city's substantial Orthodox population. Many ultra-Orthodox Jews reject the public display of homosexuality as an "abomination" that desecrates the biblical city and flouts Jewish law.

Police said they arrested 52 suspects who planned to disrupt the event, including a man carrying a knife near the parade route. Counter-protesters jeered through megaphones and carried signs saying "Jerusalem is not Sodom" and "Keep the Holy Land holy." Police confined their demonstration to a penned-off park far from the procession.

Ahead of the event, the city said it had taken down a series of homophobic banners that had recently appeared on Jerusalem billboards.

The parade passed peacefully this year but has ended violently before: In 2015, an ultra-Orthodox extremist stabbed a 16-year-old girl to death and wounded several others. The assailant struck shortly after completing a 10-year prison sentence for stabbing participants at the 2005 march.

Jerusalem's tense march contrasts with the more free-wheeling one staged every year in Tel Aviv, a secular coastal city celebrated for its gay-friendly lifestyle, set to draw hundreds of thousands of tourists for the occasion next week.

Support for gay rights is increasingly widespread in Israel, where gay people serve openly in the military and parliament. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appointed Amir Ohana, the country's first openly gay cabinet minister, from his right-wing Likud party. Ohana stopped by the parade and was met with boos from the liberal crowd.

Wrapped in a string of rainbow flags, Meitav Aaron, an American gay student who grew up religious, said he wore a Jewish skullcap to the parade "to show that there are religious Jews who are also believing in this cause ... that Judaism means as much to me as to the Orthodox guy that might be protesting this entire event."

The post Jerusalem gay pride parade draws revelers, police appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Amir Ohana's appointment on Wednesday came as Netanyahu heads an interim government following the dissolution of parliament last week. The prime minister also faces a hearing before the attorney general over corruption allegations and possible indictment.

Ohana is an ardent Netanyahu backer and has voiced support for a bill to grant a seated prime minister immunity from prosecution.

It remains unclear how, if at all, Ohana's appointment could impact the cases against the prime minister.

With his appointment, Ohana also becomes Israel's first openly gay cabinet member.

"An attorney and jurist, MK Ohana is very familiar with the justice system. He holds a Bachelor degree in Law and previously worked for the State Attorney's Office (Central District). He worked as an attorney for a decade and appeared in various courts throughout the country. As an MK, he has led a series of laws including Basic Law: Nation-State of the Jewish People," the Prime Minister's Office said on its website.

A statement from Ohana said, "As a Jew, as an Israeli, as a partner of the love of my life Alon Hadad, as a father to Ella and David, who are my family, as a Mizrahi, as a member of Likud and as a liberal (yes, all of those!), and after thousands of hours as a litigator, it is a great privilege to serve the State of Israel as justice minister. I thank the prime minister for the tremendous trust, and thank you to all those who have sent their congratulations."

Ohana's appointment has rattled the United Right faction, as National Union leader Bezalel Smotrich was eyeing the justice portfolio.

Smotrich, however, sparked controversy on Monday when he declared that he would like to see Israeli judiciary defer to Halacha, or Jewish law, adding, "Israel will go back to being run as it was during the days of King David and King Solomon – according to the law of the Torah."

The statement caused a political and public firestorm, which many decrying what they called the Smotrich's outright plan to endorse religion coercion.

Netanyahu on Monday rejected Smotrich call to govern Israel according to Jewish law, stating, "Israel will not become a state of Halacha.

During May's coalition negotiations, which failed to produce a government, United Right had originally demanded the justice portfolio for Smotrich and the education portfolio for Habayit Hayehudi leader Rafi Peretz.

With the Justice Ministry now spoken for, Smotrich and Peretz are reportedly at odds over who should get the education portfolio.

In March, Netanyahu stated that he plans to keep the education portfolio in Likud's hands, but it is believed he is likely to tap Peretz.

Still, under the faction agreement between National Union and Habayit Hayehudi, Smotrich was given the right of first refusal to any portfolio the faction was offered, but on Wednesday, an associate of Peretz said that there was "absolutely no way" that the former chief military rabbi would cede the Education Ministry to Smotrich.

Peretz's camp has also accused Smotrich of instigating fights with Netanyahu, which they said have caused the prime minister to lose faith in Smotrich and perhaps in the United Right altogether.

In a statement released after learning of Ohana's appointment, Smotrich said, "Amir Ohana is a friend and a worthy person, and of course I wish him great success, but he's not the story here. The story is Netanyahu, who wouldn't dare treat any of his other [political] partners as he treats the religious Zionist camp. It's time we drew the necessary conclusions."

Sources in the religious Zionist camp said that "the ball is in Netanyahu's court. He has to show us that he sees the religious Zionist camp as a respected partner."

The post Netanyahu taps Likud ally as Israel's justice minister appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

To remedy what their parents, a gay married couple, view as an injustice, Ethan Dvash-Banks became a plaintiff at the tender age of 16 months in a federal lawsuit against the U.S. State Department that seeks the same rights his brother has as an American citizen.

Each boy was conceived with donor eggs and the sperm from a different father – one an American, the other an Israeli citizen – but born by the same surrogate mother minutes apart.

"What we're trying to do is pursue justice for Ethan," said Elad Dvash-Banks, Ethan's biological dad, "and correct a wrong that the State Department is continuing to pursue that might affect other couples."

The lawsuit was one of two filed Monday by an LGBTQ immigrant rights group that said the State Department is discriminating against same-sex binational couples by denying their children citizenship at birth. The cases filed in Los Angeles and Washington by Immigration Equality said the children of a U.S. citizen who marries abroad are entitled to U.S. citizenship at birth no matter where they are born and even if the other parent is a foreigner.

The State Department said it does not comment on pending litigation, but pointed to guidance on its website that says there must be a biological connection to a U.S. citizen to become a citizen at birth.

Aaron Morris, executive director of Immigration Equality, said the State Department is wrongly applying a policy for children born out of wedlock to married same-sex couples.

"If a mother and father walk into a consulate and have a marriage certificate and birth certificate, they're never asked any questions about the biology of the child," Morris said. "But the converse is also true and every same-sex couple will be asked that."

The other case filed Monday involves two women, one from the U.S., and one from Italy, who met in New York, wed in London and each gave birth to a son. The State Department did not recognize the couple's marriage, the lawsuit said, and only granted citizenship to the boy whose biological mother was born and raised in the U.S.

Citizenship issues frequently arise with births overseas – even for heterosexual U.S. citizens – and particularly with the use of artificial insemination and surrogates, said immigration lawyer Ally Bolour, who is not involved in the lawsuit.

The Supreme Court's rejection in 2013 of the Defense of Marriage Act, which had barred the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages, opened the door to the potentially ground-breaking challenges now being brought, he said.

"This is an absolutely fascinating, cutting-edge area of law that stems from [DOMA] being overturned," Bolour said. "It was just a matter of time for this issue to be decided by the courts."

Andrew Dvash-Banks was studying in Israel when he met his future husband, Elad, an Israeli citizen. Because they couldn't marry at the time in the U.S. or in Israel, they moved to Canada, where they wed in 2010. The children were born by a surrogate in September 2016.

Everything seemed fine until the couple brought their cranky infants to the American consulate in Toronto a few months later to apply for citizenship and the woman at the counter began asking probing questions they found shocking and humiliating.

The consular official told them she had the discretion to require a DNA test to show who the biological father was of each boy and without those tests neither son would get citizenship. The men knew that Andrew was Aiden's biological father and Elad was Ethan's but they had kept it a secret and had not planned on telling anyone.

"I started crying," Andrew Dvash-Banks said. "These are twins, how can you differentiate between them? They were born minutes apart."

After submitting the DNA test results that proved who fathered each boy, the couple received a large and small envelope from the U.S. on March 2. The big one included Aiden's passport. The other was a letter notifying Andrew that Ethan's application had been denied.

The family has since moved to Los Angeles to be closer to Andrew Dvash-Banks' family. Ethan came on a tourist visa that expired last month.

"He doesn't have legal status," Andrew Dvash-Banks said.

The post Israeli-American gay couple sues after baby denied US citizenship appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.