Police have arrested seven relatives of a woman murdered in the Negev this week on suspicion of involvement in her death, Arab outlets report.
Aisha Abu-Wadi, a widow in her 30s from Kuseife, was getting out of a taxi to visit her children at school in the Bedouin town on Monday when she was shot dead by a masked man who fled the scene.
Abu-Wadi was murdered amid a long-running custody dispute between her and the family of her late husband, who was killed in a traffic accident a few years ago.
Her children moved in with their paternal grandparents soon after her husband’s death, and the widow struggled to visit them.
Her death added to the spiraling homicide rate in the Arab community. In a 2024 report, the Israel Observatory on Femicide found that a disproportionate number of female murder victims are Arab, comprising half of the 20 women killed in Israel that year.
According to the anti-violence watchdog Abraham Initiatives, there have been 31 homicides in the Arab community since the beginning of 2025, compared to 17 during the same period last year.
Help us report truthfully on social media
As a multimedia journalist, my job is to take the quality, fact-based journalism produced by The Times of Israel newsroom and make it accessible across every platform — from Instagram posts to podcasts to short-form videos.
This is how many, especially young people, consume news these days. But misinformation is rampant on social media. Our team at ToI produces accurate, responsible short-form reporting on Israel and the Jewish world.
If you believe in the importance of factual social media journalism, please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. Your financial support is essential to sustain responsible multimedia reporting.
— Gabriella Jacobs, multimedia journalist
Support our work
Support our work
Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this
You're a dedicated reader
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you,
David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
Join Our Community
Join Our Community
Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this