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Israel has been an LGBTQ haven in the Middle East. Its new government could change that.
(JTA) — The minister holding the country’s purse strings calls himself a “proud homophobe.” Another minister says Pride parades are “vulgar,” while a deputy minister who wants to cancel them was just given power over some aspects of what schoolchildren are taught. And then there are the lawmakers who want doctors to be able to decline medical care to LGBTQ people.
These are all members of the new Israeli government helmed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and their extreme anti-LGBTQ sentiment has unnerved LGBTQ Israelis and their allies at home and overseas.
The politicians’ positions are not new, but their positions of power and leverage within the government are. Plus, the new government’s push toward a judicial overhaul that would give lawmakers the right to overrule the Supreme Court adds vulnerability to legal precedents that have protected LGBTQ Israelis.
“The majority of the gay community in Israel is feeling very unsafe,” said Hila Peer, the chairwoman of Aguda-The Association for LGBTQ Equality in Israel. “You have at least an intention to legislate laws that are dire for the gay community.”
Could Israel cease to be a haven for LGBTQ people in a hostile region? Netanyahu and others in his coalition say they are committed to protecting gay rights, but the volatile political situation means the future is hard to predict. Here’s what you need to know.
Where did LGBTQ Israelis stand before this government?
Israel is known as a gay haven in the Middle East, and Tel Aviv is frequently cited as one of the most gay-friendly cities in the world, with a Pride parade that draws hundreds of thousands of revelers from Israel and abroad. But the full picture is more complicated.
Same-sex marriage is not legal in Israel. Still, like other couples not recognized by the country’s religious establishment, LGBTQ couples can access the legal benefits of marriage.
Israel’s religious institutions control marriage for each of its constituent faiths, and the Jewish rabbinate hews to Orthodoxy. That means a slew of couples cannot marry in the country: interfaith couples; marriages between Jews in which one of the couple is not recognized as Jewish under Orthodox precepts; marriages between a man and a woman who was not divorced under religious law; marriages between a “Cohen,” or descendant of a Jewish high priest, and a divorced woman; and LGBTQ couples.
Under Israeli law, those relationships are nonetheless recognized as legal for the purposes of benefits, inheritance, parenting, adoption and other rights, if the couple is wed abroad, or in certain cases if the couple can simply prove a longstanding common-law relationship.
Israel’s Supreme Court has been essential to extending marriage rights to LGBTQ couples. In 2006, the court ruled that the country must recognize same-sex marriages performed abroad. In 2021, the court extended the right to same-sex couples to have children via surrogates, and last year, a lower court recognized marriages carried out remotely, which effectively allows same-sex marriages in which the couple, if not the officiant, is in Israel.
Other protections have come through the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, though less so in recent years. A rarely enforced ban on homosexual relations was taken off the books in 1988, and the army began allowing openly gay service members in 1993 — the same year the U.S. armed forces adopted a policy permitting gay service members only if they remained closeted.
In 1992, the Knesset passed a law banning employment discrimination based on sexual orientation, with some religious exceptions. In 1997, the Knesset extended to the LGBTQ community protections from defamatory language that are available to other communities. And in 2000, it passed the Prohibition of Discrimination in Products, Services and Entry into Places of Entertainment and Public Places Law, which forbids the denial of services to any class of people, including based on sexual orientation.
Despite the legal protections, LGBTQ Israelis have long faced opposition from within the haredi Orthodox sector, where rabbis inveigh against homosexuality and politicians have vowed to run the country according to Orthodox interpretations of Jewish law. Jerusalem’s smaller Pride parade has frequently attracted extremist protesters from the sector, some of them violent. One teenage participant was murdered in 2015.
What changes do members of the current government want to make?
Politicians from the religious parties in the new government have floated multiple changes to laws and regulations that would diminish the status of LGBTQ Israelis.
The Religious Zionist Party, one of three in the Religious Zionist Bloc, is led by Bezalel Smotrich, who has called himself a “proud homophobe” and has envisioned Israel as a theocracy. At least two members of the bloc, including Orit Strok, say a proposed law would allow service providers, including physicians, to decline treatment to LGBTQ people.
Another party in the bloc, Noam, is led by Avi Maoz, who wants to cancel Pride parades. He also advocates for conversion therapy, a practice shown to increase the risk of suicide for LGBTQ people who experience it. Maoz, who was given a new role in charge of “Jewish identity,” was confirmed on Sunday to a Ministry of Education position with authority over external programming in schools.
Even the minister responsible for maintaining relations with Diaspora Jews has expressed anti-LGBTQ sentiment. Amichai Chikli favors recognition of same-sex relationships but derides LGBTQ “pride,” says he finds the annual pride parade to be “vulgar” and believes that sexual expression should be “subdued.” He has also said that the LGBTQ rainbow flag is an antisemitic symbol.
For now, these proposals and ideas exist in the realm of rhetoric. But the deal between Netanyahu’s party, Likud, and United Torah Judaism, the haredi Orthodox bloc, spells out that the 2000 prohibition-of-discrimination law will be amended “in a way that will prevent any harm to a private business that withholds services or products based on religious belief, as long as the product or service is not unique and a similar product or service is available nearby geographically and for a similar price.”
Both opponents and defenders of the change say it echoes recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions that have allowed evangelical Christian wedding retailers to decline services to same-sex couples.
That’s a license to discriminate, said Peer. “The Discrimination Act amendment will actually state that any person in Israel can be discriminated against based on ‘belief’ and that is simply a horrible situation for us to be in,” she said.
Is Netanyahu on board with anti-LGBTQ proposals?
Not directly. Netanyahu has never made anti-LGBTQ sentiment core to his governance, and he has been critical of anti-LGBTQ expressions by his coalition partners this month. He called the idea of letting medical providers deny care to LGBTQ patients “unacceptable” and has appointed a close ally who is gay, Amir Ohana, as Knesset speaker. (Some haredi lawmakers refused to look at Ohana, and a leading rabbi affiliated with Shas, one of the coalition partners, said Ohana was infected with a “disease.”) Netanyahu also opposed Maoz’s call to cancel the Jerusalem Pride parade.
Netanyahu has pointed to LGBTQ rights when insisting — as he has done frequently — that he is in control of his government, despite the prominent positions awarded to its extremist members.
“This Israel is not going to be governed by Talmudic law,” he told opinion journalist Bari Weiss. “We’re not going to ban LGBT forums. As you know, my view on that is sharply different, to put it mildly. We’re going to remain a country of laws. I govern through the principles that I believe in.”
But Netanyahu’s concessions to the far-right parties made to smooth his path back into power have his critics concerned that he may not keep his word on LGBTQ rights. The coalition agreement about the discrimination law, while not binding, indicates that he is willing to compromise.
Peer said Netanyahu’s signed pledge to the Religious Zionist bloc held more water with her than his protestations afterward.
“Why give the man the keys if you’re not going to let him drive the car?” she said.
Furthermore, even if Netanyahu prevents anti-LGBTQ laws from reaching the books, he backs proposed changes to the judiciary that would make vulnerable protections obtained through the courts.
How does the controversial judiciary overhaul proposal factor in?
The main action taken so far by Netanyahu’s new government relates to the country’s judiciary. His new justice minister, Yariv Levin, has proposed letting a Knesset majority of 61 members to override the Supreme Court if the Court strikes down a law. Levin has also proposed letting the Knesset majority appoint the majority on the panel responsible for appointing judges.
Those proposals, which are moving through the legislative process with Netanyahu’s support, would “in the long run totally and almost surely infringe on the rights” of LGBTQ Israelis, according to Amir Fuchs, a senior researcher at the nonpartisan Israel Democracy Institute’s Center for Democratic Values and Institutions.
“The coalition will have total power to appoint the judges which means they will be a lot more conservative, more religious,” Fuchs said. “If the Supreme Court will have been captured by a coalition which is very religious, very nationalist, very conservative, then we cannot rely anymore on the Supreme Court to further progress the rights” for LGBTQ people, or for others at risk of marginalization. He said the changes would likely result in a majority of right-wing judges within four to six years.
The proposals have drawn criticism from nonpartisan watchdogs, international legal experts and Israel’s left, which views the judiciary as an essential bulwark against theocratic governance. An estimated 100,000 people protested against the proposals in Tel Aviv on Saturday night, and more protests are planned.
But a majority of Israelis appear to support allowing the Knesset to override Supreme Court rulings, according to a poll released Monday by the Israel Democracy Institute.
Do anti-LGBTQ measures have public support in Israel?
No. Polls show the majority of Israelis back equal treatment for the LGBTQ community.
“We have an extreme right-wing group that is threatening to make changes that the vast majority of the public does not stand behind,” Peer said.
Fuchs said a backlash would likely inhibit, at least in the short term, the passage of any proposed laws targeting the LGBTQ community.
“There is a strong support of LGBTQ rights, so it won’t be easy to pass laws that bluntly and openly infringe upon LGBTQ rights,” he said.
Some backlash has already occurred. Strok’s speculation that doctors could deny service to LGBTQ people immediately spurred a social media video montage of staff for 10 medical service providers in Israel in which they repeated, “We treat everyone!” One of the speakers was a Hasidic male urgent care nurse, in a sign that even Orthodox sectors might not support extreme actions.
But Smotrich says he believes his party’s supporters are not bothered by anti-LGBTQ efforts.
“A Sephardi or a traditional Jew, do you think he cares about gays? He couldn’t care less. He says, ‘Do you think I care that you [Smotrich] are against them?’” Smotrich said in a private conversation with a businessman that the public broadcaster Kan published on Monday. (The coalition is also threatening to defund Kan.) In the comments, Smotrich outlined some limits on his activism. “I’m a fascist homophobe, but I’m a man of my word,” he said. “I won’t stone gays.”
What are LGBTQ activists in Israel and the Diaspora saying and doing?
LGBTQ Israelis are playing a crucial role in the mounting anti-government protests, activating a network that put some 100,000 people in the streets in 2018 after Netanyahu voted against a bill to allow gay couples to use surrogacy.
And even without any concrete changes taking place yet, LGBTQ activists say talk is already creating a hostile environment.
Ethan Felson, the CEO of A Wider Bridge, a U.S. organization that advocates for Israel’s LGBTQ community — and stands up for Israel within the LGBTQ community — likened the language in the coalition agreements to U.S. party platforms, which do not necessarily influence policy but set a tone nonetheless.
“It can foreshadow, or it could be words on a page,” Felson said. “But those words should never be on any page. I heard from the mom of [an Israeli] trans kid this morning just how fearful they are for their families, their security. We know all too well that when people say bad things in one place we can expect other people to act out in hateful ways in another.”
Felson, whose past is in Israel advocacy — for years he directed the Jewish Federation of North America’s Israel Action Network — suggested that the part of his current job advocating for Israel in the U.S. LGBTQ community just got a lot harder.
“I would not like to wake up and find out that Kanye West is in charge of the Civil Rights Department over at Justice,” is how he described the challenge, referring to the rapper and designer who in recent months has come out as an antisemite.
Felson’s group is urging U.S. Jews who meet with politicians from the new government to raise concerns about LGBTQ Israelis. It is also planning to call on pro-Israel funders to fill any budget gap created if the Israeli government slashes funds for LGBTQ services, as Felson expects it to be.
A Wider Bridge is also planning to forego its traditional presence at Tel Aviv Pride to instead join the Jerusalem parade, which takes place in a more fraught atmosphere, according to Felson.
“There’s a time to protest and a time to party,” he said.
Stuart Kurlander, a philanthropist who is prominent in the LGBTQ and the pro-Israel communities, said that he is consulting with LGBTQ activists in Israel, and should things take a turn for the worse, making up for lost government funds could be one avenue for his philanthropy.
“If it develops and there are impacts to the LGBTQ community, then I along with other philanthropists will look to try and fill those gaps,” he said.
Kurlander said in an interview that he takes Netanyahu and Ohana at their word that they will stem an anti-LGBTQ backlash. He said his support for Israel would not be diminished if the changes by the extremists go through, but that other donors might be negatively affected.
“It’s not going to deter me and my support for Israel,” he said. “I suspect it may for some.”
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Hezbollah Pays Steep Price in Battle to Reverse Its Fortunes
Workers remove a coffin with a body from temporary graves and prepare for transport for a funeral ceremony of four Hezbollah fighters and two civilians, amid a temporary ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel, in Tyre, southern Lebanon, April 26, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Marko Djurica/File Photo
Hezbollah has paid a heavy price for going to war with Israel on March 2: Israel has occupied a chunk of southern Lebanon, displaced hundreds of thousands of its Shi’ite Muslim constituents and killed as many as several thousand of its fighters, according to previously unreported casualty estimates from within the group.
The move has brought severe political consequences, too. In Beirut, opposition has hardened to its status as an armed group, which domestic rivals see as exposing Lebanon to repeated wars with Israel.
In April, Lebanon’s government held face-to-face talks with Israel for the first time in decades, a decision Hezbollah firmly opposed.
However, more than a dozen Hezbollah officials told Reuters they see a chance to reverse deteriorating fortunes by aligning with Tehran in its war with Israel and the United States. The group, founded by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in 1982, opened fire two days into the conflict, which began with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28.
The group’s calculations are based on the assessment that its participation would force Lebanon onto the agenda of U.S.-Iranian negotiations, and that Iranian pressure can secure a more robust ceasefire than one that took effect in November 2024 following a conflict sparked by the war in Gaza, the officials said.
Hezbollah was mauled in the last war, which killed its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, along with some 5,000 fighters, and weakened its long-dominant hold over the Lebanese state.
Rearmed with Iranian help, it has used new tactics and drones, surprising many with its capabilities after a fragile 15-month truce during which Hezbollah held fire, even as Israel continued to kill its members.
Hezbollah lawmaker Ibrahim al-Moussawi denied the group was acting on Iran’s behalf when it resumed hostilities, as alleged by opponents. He told Reuters Hezbollah saw a window to “break this vicious cycle … where the Israelis can target, assassinate, bombard, kill, without any revenge.”
He acknowledged losses and damage in southern Lebanon but said “you don’t go into making calculations of how many are going to be killed” when “pride and sovereignty and independence” are at stake.
Hezbollah’s media office said the figure of several thousand fighters killed in the present war was false.
While a US-mediated ceasefire that took effect on April 16 has led to a significant reduction in hostilities, Israel and Hezbollah have continued to trade blows in the south, where Israel maintains troops in a self-declared “buffer zone.”
Yezid Sayigh, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, said Hezbollah had “shown more resilience than many thought possible, but that was not a strategic gain in itself.”
“The only thing that will contain Israel is a comprehensive US-Iran deal,” he said. “Without a deal, there’s going to be a lot of pain for everyone. At best, a hurting stalemate.”
GRAVES FRESHLY DUG, AND QUICKLY FILLED
More than 2,600 people have been killed since March 2, around a fifth of them women, children and medics, Lebanon’s health ministry has reported. Its toll does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Three sources, two of them Hezbollah officials, said the ministry’s figures do not include many of the group’s casualties. They said several thousand Hezbollah fighters have been killed, though the group does not have the full picture yet.
In a statement to Reuters, Hezbollah’s media office denied the figures cited by the sources, and that the numbers published by Lebanon’s health ministry included its members killed in Israeli strikes.
One source, a Hezbollah commander, said scores of fighters had gone to the frontline towns of Bint Jbeil and Khiyam intending to fight to the death. Their bodies have yet to be recovered.
In the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut, more than two dozen freshly dug graves were quickly filled with fighters’ bodies in the days after the ceasefire took hold. Simple marble tombstones identify some as commanders, others as fighters.
In one southern village alone, Yater, the council recorded the deaths of 34 Hezbollah fighters.
Lebanon’s Shi’ite Muslim community has borne the brunt of Israel’s attacks, forced to flee into Christian, Druze and other areas, where many blame Hezbollah for starting the war.
Israel has been entrenching its hold over a security zone stretching as far as 10 km (6 miles) into Lebanon and demolishing villages, saying it aims to shield northern Israel from attacks by Hezbollah militants embedded in civilian areas.
An Israeli government official said Hezbollah had abrogated the November 2024 ceasefire by firing on Israeli citizens on March 2. The threat to northern Israel would be eradicated, the official said, adding thousands of Hezbollah militants had been killed, and Israel was steadily destroying the group’s infrastructure.
The Israeli military says Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets and drones at Israel since March 2. Israel has announced 17 soldiers killed in southern Lebanon, along with two civilians in northern Israel.
Citing ongoing Israeli strikes, Hezbollah has called the April ceasefire meaningless and continued to attack.
IRAN ‘WILL NOT SELL’ THEIR FRIENDS
A diplomat who has contact with Hezbollah described its decision to enter the war as a big gamble and a survival strategy, saying it felt it needed to be part of the problem so it could be part of an eventual regional solution.
It has yet to be seen if the gamble will pay off.
Tehran has demanded that Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah be included in any deal on the wider war. But US President Donald Trump said last month that any deal Washington reaches with Tehran “is in no way subject to Lebanon.”
A spokesperson for Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry, Tahir Andrabi, referred Reuters to an April 16 statement in which he said peace in Lebanon was essential to the talks it is mediating between the U.S. and Iran.
A Western official said they saw a possibility the US and Iran might eventually reach a settlement that does not address the war in Lebanon.
Asked about this, the US State Department, Iran’s mission to the United Nations in Geneva and Lebanon’s government did not immediately comment.
Hezbollah’s Moussawi said a ceasefire in Lebanon continues to be a top priority for Iran, adding Tehran shares Lebanon’s objectives, including that Israel halt attacks and withdraw from Lebanon. Hezbollah has “full trust in Iran – that the Iranians will not sell their own friends”, he said.
The State Department referred Reuters to an April 27 interview Secretary of State Marco Rubio did with Fox News, in which he said Israel had a right to defend itself against Hezbollah’s attacks, and that he didn’t think Israel wanted to maintain its buffer zone in Lebanon indefinitely.
The United States has urged Israel “to make sure their responses are proportional and targeted,” he said.
When the April 16 ceasefire was announced, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hezbollah’s disarmament would be a fundamental demand in peace talks with Lebanon.
Hezbollah has ruled out disarmament, saying the matter of its weapons is a topic for a national dialogue. Any move by Lebanon to disarm the group by force would risk igniting conflict in a country shattered by civil war from 1975 to 1990.
Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam have sought Hezbollah’s peaceful disarmament since last year. On March 2, the government banned the group’s military activities.
Hezbollah has demanded the government cancel that decision and end its direct talks with Israel.
Lebanese officials have told Reuters they believe direct talks with Israel under the auspices of the US are the best way to secure a lasting ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli troops, as only Washington has enough leverage with Israel to achieve those aims.
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US President Trump Tells Israeli Media: ‘I Studied Iran’s New Proposal, It Is Not Acceptable to Me’
US President Donald Trump arrives to award the medal of honor to Master Sgt. Roderick ‘Roddie’ W. Edmonds, Staff Sgt. Michael H. Ollis, and retired Command Sgt. Maj. Terry P. Richardson during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 02 March 2026.
US President Donald Trump said he has reviewed Iran’s latest proposal and described it as “unacceptable” in an interview with Israeli broadcaster Kan News on Sunday. Trump added that ongoing efforts related to the conflict are “progressing very well,” without providing further details. He also renewed his call for clemency for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, arguing that Israel needs a leader focused on wartime priorities rather than legal matters.
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Israel Court Extends Detention of Gaza Flotilla Activists
Activist Saif Abu Keshek, a member of the Global Sumud Flotilla detained by Israel, sits at a magistrate’s court for a detention extension hearing in Ashkelon, southern Israel, May 3, 2026. REUTERS/Amir Cohen
An Israeli court has extended by two days the detention of two activists arrested aboard a Gaza-bound flotilla that was intercepted by Israeli forces in international waters near Greece, their lawyer said on Sunday.
Saif Abu Keshek, a Spanish national, and Brazilian Thiago Avila were detained by Israeli authorities late on Wednesday and brought to Israel, while more than 100 other pro-Palestinian activists aboard the boats were taken to the Greek island of Crete.
A court spokesperson confirmed that their remand had been extended until May 5.
The governments of Spain and Brazil issued a joint statement on Friday calling their detention illegal.
The activists were part of a second Global Sumud flotilla, launched in an attempt to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza by delivering humanitarian assistance. The ships had set sail from Barcelona on April 12.
Israeli authorities requested a four-day extension of their arrest on suspicion of offenses that include assisting the enemy during wartime, contact with a foreign agent, membership in and providing services to a terrorist organization, and the transfer of property for a terrorist organization, said rights group Adalah, which is assisting in the activists’ defense.
Hadeel Abu Salih, the men’s attorney, said that the two deny the allegations. Their arrest was unlawful due to a lack of jurisdiction, she told Reuters at the Ashkelon Magistrate’s Court after the hearing, adding that the mission was meant to provide aid to civilians in Gaza, not to any militant group.
Abu Salih said that Abu Keshek and Avila were subjected to violence en route to Israel and kept handcuffed and blindfolded until Thursday morning.
Asked for comment, the Israeli military referred Reuters to the Israeli foreign ministry, which said that staff were compelled to act to stop what it described as violent physical obstruction by Abu Keshek and Avila. All measures taken were lawful, it said.