Monitor group launches awareness campaign for 22 femicide victims killed in 2024
Number of women killed remains steady over previous years, with Arab community still suffering outsized share, but head of Femicide Observatory says education can lead to change
Reporter at The Times of Israel
As Israeli Jews light candles for Hanukkah, an organization dedicated to ending the killing of women is asking people to remember the 22 victims of femicide this year.
The Israel Observatory on Femicide, an organization fighting against the intentional killing of women because they are female, has launched a social media campaign for the holiday titled “Her Light was Extinguished,” hoping to use the holiday to raise awareness about the scourge of femicide.
Prof. Shalva Weil, director of the Observatory and a senior researcher at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, announced the campaign on Wednesday, the first night of Hanukkah.
“People light candles for Hanukkah and we want to raise awareness about how these victims’ lights were extinguished,” Weil told The Times of Israel. “Every night of Hanukkah, when we light another candle, we’re encouraging people to think of one of the victims. We will highlight victims from the Jewish, Muslim, Druze, and Christian sectors of Israel.”
According to year-end data set to be published by the Observatory, 22 women were victims of femicide in 2024, matching figures from the previous year. There were a further 19 women killed violently, though those cases were not considered femicide.
“The heinous crime of femicide continues unabated, both among Jews and among Israeli Arabs,” Weil said.
The report shows that 10 of the cases came from the Arabic-speaking community, including Druze, “highlighting a disproportionate representation given their 21% share of the population,” it said.
Another 10 victims were Jewish and two others were foreign nationals. In all but the two murders of non-Israelis, the killer came from the same ethnic community as their victim, in line with figures from previous years, the observatory reported.
Femicide includes so-called honor killings, in which women are murdered by a family member due to disagreements over lifestyle choices, as well as other forms of domestic or gender-based violence directed against women.
According to the Observatory, 55 percent of the suspected killers were husbands or partners to their victim. In other cases, the attackers were family members, such as brothers or sons, though the report noted that in 54.6 percent of the cases no suspect has been named, either due to a gag order or because their identity has not yet been determined. Charges were brought or confessions obtained in the other 45.4% of cases.
In some instances, signs of violence on the victim’s body, including indications of sexual assault, can lead to a determination that a woman was a victim of femicide even without a suspect.
The report found that only 20% of victims had turned to authorities for help in the past.
“Not many victims of violence place their trust in the police, who are not too effective in solving crimes,” Weil told The Times of Israel.
According to the report, police are much more likely to charge a suspect in the killing of a Jewish woman than when an Arab woman is the victim. Of the 41 cases in which women were murdered in 2024, charges were brought against Arabs in only 17% of cases, as compared to 56% for Jews.
The observatory noted that the killings are often gruesome, with nearly half of the women knifed to death. Others were strangled, bludgeoned with a hammer, burned or run over with a car. Three were victims of gunfire. In most cases, the victim was found with clear signs of violence on her body.
Education works
Since its founding in 2020, the Observatory, an independent monitor that relies on volunteers and donations, has released annual reports documenting violence against women in Hebrew, Arabic, and English. In that time, the number of femicides tracked by the group has remained steady between 20 and 22 victims, aside from 2021, when the number dropped to 16.
Nonetheless, Weil said that stopping domestic violence, and ultimately femicide, is possible, pointing to the Ethiopian community, which less than two decades ago made up a third of all femicide cases in Israel, according to Weil.
Yet after working with the traditional Ethiopian religious leaders called kesim, engaging with social workers, and raising awareness and education in the community, there have been no femicides in the Ethiopian community in the past two years.
The case study shows that “most femicides can be prevented,” Weil said, promoting programs tailored to the challenges of specific ethnic communities. She suggested that Russian speakers be educated about how alcohol consumption can lead to violence, and urged religious authorities in the Arab community to speak out against domestic violence and the so-called honor killings.
“The awareness of femicide has increased this year, and that is so positive,” Weil said. “However, the number of femicides in Israel has remained constant from last year. Of course, even one femicide is one too many.”
Data by the Welfare and Social Affairs Ministry published in November showed an overall decrease in reported cases of domestic violence over 2024, part of a reported downturn since war broke out on October 7, 2023.
But officials emphasize that this is not an indication of improvement on the issue.
Officials in the Welfare Ministry have said they anticipate a surge in women seeking help for domestic violence once the war ends, including space in shelters. Anticipating this increase, the ministry has made more rooms available at shelters nationwide.
