Jerusalem couple in suspected murder-suicide was in process of divorcing, reports say

The Jerusalem couple found dead in a suspected murder-suicide on Friday had begun the process of divorcing, according to reports.

A 13-year-old boy found both his parents dead at their home after hearing gunfire. The boy, the eldest of four, discovered his parents lying on the floor. The family was reportedly Haredi, and the father had held a gun license since July 2023.

Neighbors tell the Ynet news site that the couple had started the procedures to get divorced at the rabbinate and that there was noticeable “tension” between the pair.

The Kan public broadcaster says the woman had requested the divorce.

According to residents in the neighborhood, the woman was socially active and ran charitable projects within the community.

“Every week, she would assign volunteers to prepare food and provide assistance to [new] mothers in the neighborhood when they returned from the hospital,” a neighbor tells Ynet.

The preliminary suspicion by police was that the father, 38, shot his wife, 35, then killed himself with the weapon. According to Kan, the woman was shot twice, leading to suspicions that she was murdered by her husband, who had one gunshot wound.

According to reports, there had been no previous complaints to police of domestic violence, and the family was not known to social services.

Last year, 23 women were killed in Israel because of their gender, according to the Israel Observatory on Femicide at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

According to the Observatory, 55 percent of the suspected killers were husbands or partners to their victims. In many other cases, the attackers were family members, such as brothers or sons.

The observatory counts so-called honor killings, matricides, and murders by a partner or family member as femicide. It does not include deaths from terrorism, accidents, or other unrelated issues.