Homosexuality in the Palestinian territories is considered a taboo subject; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people experience persecution and violence.

Legalistically, the confused legal legacy of foreign occupation – Ottoman, British, Jordanian, Egyptian and Israeli – continues to determine the erratic application or non-application of the criminal law to same-sex activity and gender variance in each of the territories.

[12] Also, the organization reported that articles 258 and 263 of the draft penal code, in 2003, for Palestine, contained "provisions that criminalize adult consensual same sex conduct".

[13][12] There have also been attempts by the Gazan legislative body, following Hamas's takeover of Gaza, to "amend or replace the British Mandatory Penal Code" with a proposed change in 2013, including "flogging for adultery" but it did not pass the legislature.

[14] In the State of Palestine, there is no specific, stand-alone civil rights legislation that protects LGBTQ people from discrimination or harassment.

All four said that social media was a "game changer" in meeting other LGBTQ individuals, but some feared catfishing by undercover Hamas or Israeli intelligence agents.

[25] The Israeli LGBTQ organization The Aguda stated, in 2013, that around 2,000 Palestinian homosexuals live in Tel Aviv "at any one time.

"[28] In June 2022, Israel began issuing work permits for gay Palestinian refugees, who had been granted asylum, and those "fleeing domestic violence.

The article went on to say that such Palestinians have various escape routes to Israel, but that making them eligible for permanent residency includes "working with Israeli security forces" although those forces have been accused of blackmailing Palestinians into becoming informants for Israeli intelligence services; only "select few who have passed on invaluable knowledge" are granted this kind of permit, which requires the sign-off of the prime minister.

[31] In 2010, the organization Palestinian Queers for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (PQBDS) was formed, aimed at challenging Israeli representation of gay life in Palestine and pinkwashing.

[35] During the 2023 Israel–Hamas war, some Palestinians, who considered themselves part of the LGBTQ community, shared information in anonymously geotagged posts on Queering the Map, a community-based online collaborative and counter-mapping platform.

[40] HIAS has claimed that "there are ample testimonies and records that LGBTQ living in the Palestinian Authority are persecuted over suspected collaboration with the Israeli security services.

"[28] In April 2023, it was reported that Zuhair Relit (also known as Zoheir Khalil Ghalith), a Palestinian living in Nablus, was killed by the Lions' Den militant group for collaborating with the IDF.

[8] In the early 2000s, two established groups formed to provide support to lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) Palestinian people living within the borders of Israel, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank.

In 2003, co-founder Rauda Morcos was outed by the Israeli tabloid Yedioth Ahronoth after agreeing to an interview, despite asking her sexual orientation not be included in the article, which led to significant personal backlash.

The conference was reported to be problem-free, although it met opposition by the Islamic Movement in Israel (a grouping of Arab Muslims), which publicly called for the meeting to be cancelled, and urged its community "to stand against the campaign to market sexual deviance among our daughters and our women" resulting in some 30 people protesting outside the venue; the same group issued a fatwa against Rauda Morcos because, Morcos said, "according to them I was 'the snake’s head'".