Comptroller says state failing to address domestic abuse, violence against women

In report, Matanyahu Englman says Israel has not taken steps recommended in 2021 audit of same issue, says growing violence figures oblige state to act to fix deficiencies

State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman said in a report published Tuesday that the state is failing to adequately address domestic violence and violence against women, despite government efforts to curb the phenomenon.

In his report, Englman said “we must not stand idly by” as women in Israel continue to face spousal abuse and violence, which continues to grow, according to figures published in the report.

While the government has taken several steps to address violence against women since the Comptroller’s Office’s last report on the issue in 2021, Englman said, there are still several areas where the state is failing.

These deficiencies include the fact that there is still no official definition in law for violence between spouses, which he previously recommended, a national system for addressing the issue has not been established, and information sharing between relevant agencies and authorities is severely lacking.

According to the report, 32 women were killed by their spouse or partner between 2022 and 2024, a third of the total female murder victims over the same period.

During the same three years, 146,000 people experienced serious violence from spouses, the report said.

State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman attends a meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem on May 12, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

“These figures oblige the Israeli government to act more vigorously to correct the deficiencies,” Englman said.

“The State Comptroller’s Office recommends that the Welfare and Social Affairs Ministry, in cooperation with all the agencies involved in dealing with the phenomenon of domestic violence, act to complete the establishment of the national system for dealing with the phenomenon in its full form, as well as to establish a regular action plan for evaluating the results of the steps being taken on the subject,” the report added.

According to data published by the Welfare and Social Affairs Ministry last November, there had been a decrease in reported cases of domestic violence over the previous year, but officials emphasized that this was not an indication of improvement in the issue.

The data showed that there was a 30 percent decrease in women contacting the 118 hotline for domestic violence and an 11% decrease in domestic violence cases opened at the ministry between October 7, 2023, and October 2024.

File – The scene of the suspected murder of a woman in an incident of domestic violence in Haifa, October 1, 2022. (Israel Police)

Officials in the Welfare Ministry stressed, however, that the lower reporting rates and the fewer women seeking help did not mean that domestic violence in Israel has waned in the past year, but rather that the ongoing war with Hamas — which started on October 7, 2023 — was making women feel less safe to report or seek help for their situation.

A possible explanation offered by the ministry was that the war was making women feel less secure in making a big change to their lives because they didn’t feel safe enough to leave their homes during wartime or were facing economic uncertainty.