Law enforcement a no-show at Knesset discussions on violence against women
Opposition MKs who led meetings to mark International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women slam Ben Gvir, who was touring prison services' domestic violence unit
Representatives from the National Security Ministry, Israel Prison Service (IPS) and police failed to show up at a pair of Knesset discussions they were invited to on Tuesday to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
A police spokesperson confirmed to the Kan public broadcaster that National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, whose term has seen a spike in gender-based violence, refused to approve the participation of police representatives in a hearing of the Knesset Committee on the Status of Women and Gender Equality.
According to Hebrew media, a message sent by Ben Gvir to members of that committee and to the organizer of a separate conference on violence against women said the National Security Ministry was busy with a religious women’s tour of the IPS anti-domestic violence unit Misgav.
“All resources are diverted to this important event, and we will be unable to send representatives to the requested event,” the message said.
The tour was organized by the Knesset’s Religious Women’s Caucus, which is headed by MK Limor Son Har-Melech of Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party. Ben Gvir himself joined the tour alongside Son Har-Melech and IPS chief Kobi Yaakobi.
MK Merav Ben-Ari of the opposition Yesh Atid party told Haaretz that the ministry had refused all the requests she sent over the past two weeks that it take part in the conference she organized. She accused Otzma Yehudit of illegally “exploiting prison service resources for the advancement of the party and the minister himself.”
The conference dealt with “challenges in implementing the electronic monitoring law,” which applies to domestic abusers. A draft version of the law was torpedoed by Ben Gvir in March 2023, soon after he took office. A new version he helped pass in July contained greater restrictions on such monitoring.
Dozens of civil society organizations, lawmakers and government representatives were set to attend the conference, as were David and Anat Pachima, whose daughter Avishag was murdered by her partner in 2022.
Meanwhile MK Meirav Cohen, also of Yesh Atid, who chairs the Knesset Committee on the Status of Women and Gender Equality, shared a picture on X of an empty chair with a sign reading “reserved for Minister Ben Gvir” at the committee’s hearing on Tuesday.
“This is the worst government for women in the history of the country,” she wrote. “It’s one kind of negligence to see record-high gender-based violence and not act to increase the funds or resources to combat the issue. It’s a more serious negligence to not bother to show up to hearings on the issue even though you’re the minister responsible for it.
“But to forbid police representatives to appear or participate in a designated discussion on the issue? On the day when the world is marking the struggle against violence against women?” asked Cohen. “That’s not just criminal negligence — that’s just being evil and obtuse. And it costs women’s lives.”
Responding on X to the “left-wing and fear-mongering media,” Ben Gvir touted his tour of the IPS Misgav Unit and the “hundreds of millions of shekels” he has allocated to it as an example of his devotion to “the protection of women, not empty words.”
“Not the empty discussions in committees designed to turn the IPS and police representatives into the opposition’s punching bag, but real action to protect women,” wrote Ben Gvir.
He accused Cohen and Ben-Ari of turning a blind eye to cases where right-wing women were harassed, including “when Jewish women were harassed on the basis of nationality,” and assailed their “fear-mongering” opposition to gun ownership reforms that Ben Gvir said put weapons in the hands of “tens of thousands of women,” making them safer.
“Women’s rights don’t matter to them,” said Ben Gvir of the opposition lawmakers. “Just petty politics and a desire to hurt the right-wing government and myself.”
This year has seen 45 women killed in violent incidents to date — including a woman shot dead in the central Arab town of Jatt on Monday — compared with 42 female homicide victims in all of 2024.
Of the women killed this year, at least 32 were murdered in gender-based violence, according to the Israel Observatory on Femicide — up from 20 cases of femicide the center reported in all of 2024, when Ben Gvir slashed the government budget for a program to protect women at risk of domestic abuse.