International News Editor Michael K. Lavers will be on assignment in Israel through Oct. 9.

Lavers will be in the country on Oct. 7, a year after Hamas launched its surprise attack against Israel, and will cover how the country’s LGBTQ community has coped with that horrible day and its ongoing aftermath. Lavers will also cover how the war in the Gaza Strip has impacted LGBTQ Palestinians — in both Gaza and the West Bank and among the Palestinian diaspora in the U.S.

Lavers arrived in Israel three days after Iran launched upwards of 200 ballistic missiles at the country.

An Israeli airstrike in Beirut, the Lebanese capital, on Sept. 27 killed Hassan Nasrallah, the long-time leader of Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militant group.

Hezbollah since last October has launched rockets into northern Israel. The Israeli military earlier this week began a ground incursion into southern Lebanon. 

“The horrific events of Oct. 7 and their aftermath have impacted LGBTQ people in Israel, in the Gaza Strip, in the West Bank, in Lebanon, and elsewhere throughout the Middle East and around the world,” said Lavers. “It is critically important for the Washington Blade to document the situation on the ground, and to show how the horrific events of the last year have impacted LGBTQ communities throughout the region.”

“We are committed to objective coverage of the situation in the Middle East and to highlighting the plight of LGBTQ Palestinians and Israelis caught up in the war,” said Blade editor Kevin Naff. “The generous support of our readers enables this coverage so please consider making a donation at bladefoundation.org to ensure the Blade’s 55-year record of award-winning journalism continues.”

The Israeli government on Sunday announced a gay man’s sister-in-law and five other hostages were killed in the Gaza Strip before they could be rescued.

The Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry in a press release said members of the Israel Defense Forces on Saturday “located” Carmel Gat’s body. The IDF also found the bodies of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Ori Danino, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi, and Eden Yerushalmi.

The Associated Press said IDF forces found the bodies in a tunnel underneath Rafah, a city in southern Gaza that borders Egypt. Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper, reported Israeli officials said the hostages “were shot at close range” by Hamas militants on Aug. 29 or Aug. 30.

“This is a difficult day for us,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a video message. “Together with all citizens of Israel, I was outraged to the depths of my soul by the horrific, cold-blooded murder of six of our hostages.”

“I say to the Hamas terrorists who murdered our hostages and I say to their leaders: You will pay the price,” he added. “We will not rest, nor will be silent. We will pursue you, we will find you, and we will settle accounts with you.”

Gat was visiting her parents in Be’eri, a kibbutz that is near the border of Israel and Gaza, on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas launched a surprise attack against southern Israel from the Palestinian enclave it governs. 

Hamas militants killed Gat’s parents. 

They kidnapped Gat and her sister-in-law, Yarden Roman, and brought them to Gaza. Roman’s husband, Alon Gat, with their young daughter, Geffen, jumped out of the car in which the militants had placed them and escaped before it drove into Gaza. Hamas, which the U.S. has designated as a terrorist organization, released Roman on Nov. 29, 2023.

The Jerusalem Post reported Carmel Gat, an occupational therapist, while in Gaza taught other hostages yoga and meditation to help them endure their captivity.   

Her brother-in-law, Gili Roman, a teacher who is a member of Israel’s Nemos LGBTQ+ Swimming Club, included a broken heart emoji in a brief email exchange with the Washington Blade on Sunday.

The Israeli government says Hamas militants killed roughly 1,200 people on Oct. 7, including upwards of 370 partygoers and others at an all-night music festival in Re’im, a kibbutz that is a few miles southwest of Be’eri. Carmel Gat was one of the upwards of 250 people who Hamas militants took hostage. 

The Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry says more than 40,000 people have died in the enclave since the war began. 

The Washington Post reported an 11-month-old boy in Gaza contracted polio last month, and there are several other suspected cases. UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, and the World Health Organization on Sunday began a mass polio vaccination campaign.

Hezbollah, which the U.S. and Israel have designated a terrorist organization, has launched rockets from Lebanon into northern Israel. The Houthis have also launched rockets towards Israel and have attacked commercial ships in the Red Sea.

Iran, which backs the Houthis and Hezbollah, on April 13 launched a drone and missile attack against Israel in response to a suspected Israeli air strike killed two Iranian generals in Damascus, Syria. 

An Israeli air strike on July 30 in Beirut killed a senior Hezbollah commander. A suspected Israeli strike in Tehran, Iran, the following day killed Ismail Haniyah, Hamas’s top political leader.

Goldberg-Polin’s parents, Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg, spoke at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Aug. 21.

‘We did not do enough to save our Carmel’

Hundreds of thousands of people on Sunday took to the streets of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and other cities and towns across Israel to demand Netanyahu agree to a ceasefire that would secure the remaining hostages’ release.

Carmel Gat’s family in a statement to the Jerusalem Post on Sunday said it refused to meet with Netanyahu.

“We have no interest in speaking with the person responsible for Carmel’s death or in being part of his media circus,” said the family. “We will not allow him to use us as justification or legitimacy for the murder of the next hostage. The blood of the hostages is on his hands.”

“We did not do enough to save our Carmel,” it added. “We ask that for the memory of Carmel and for the rescue of the hostages still in captivity — take to the streets and shut down the country until everyone comes home.”

A Wider Bridge in an email it sent to supporters on Sunday said “the horrifying news of the Hamas murder of six hostages — Ori Danino, Carmel Gat, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi, and Eden Yerushalmi — cuts deep.” 

“In a sense, they are all our family,” reads the email. “The six were found executed in a tunnel in Rafah as their rescue was becoming a possibility.”

A Wider Bridge said it also “came to know Hersh through his parents’ advocacy, which brought his story and the plight of all the hostages to millions.” The email also notes A Wider Bridge “has also grown close to the family of Carmel Gat” since Oct. 7.

“She was stolen from Kibbutz Be’eri along with her sister-in-law, Yarden,” said A Wider Bridge. “Yarden’s brothers, Gili and Nili, are gay men active in the Israeli LGBTQ community and involved in the hostage families group. They have spoken with our community on several AWB programs. We exhaled a little when Yarden was released from the hellscape in which her cousin remained, and we are devastated by their pain today at the execution of Carmel.”