Woman shot dead; young son, teen sister wounded; husband and his mother arrested

A 26-year-old woman was shot and killed in front of her young son and teenage sister in Ramle on Wednesday, with her husband and mother-in-law reportedly among the three people arrested on suspicion of involvement.

First responders who arrived on the scene found Wafa Abu Janam in her car and pronounced her dead at the scene.

The two children — the victim’s 4-year-old son and her 14-year-old sister — were moderately injured by the gunfire and taken to hospital.

Police said they arrested three of the victim’s relatives but didn’t specify whom. According to the Ynet news site, these included the woman’s husband and mother-in-law. The three will appear in court on Thursday morning for a hearing on their detention.

Ynet reported that around a year ago, a bomb was placed in Abu Janam’s car, and that she had previously been stabbed by her sisters-in-law.

A police source told outlet that at the end of last month “following information and fear for her life,” the police went to court to ask for a protection order for Abu Janam.

However, the source said that the court did not give the order, and the woman refused offers of help including a place in a shelter.

Abu Janam was shot at close range through the driver’s side window as she drove out of a parking lot near a daycare.

“We heard five shots, a pause, and then more shots. It’s shitty situation, a murder near a mother’s house in front of her child,” a woman told Ynet, refusing to give her name for fear of retribution. “We were afraid when we heard the shots and quickly called the police. A year ago, there was another murder right here in the area.

“It’s scary even to talk about it,” she said.

According to the Michal Sela Forum, 26 women have been killed by family members this year — a record high. The Michal Sela Forum was founded by Lili Ben Ami after her sister was brutally murdered by her partner on Rosh Hashanah in 2019.

Hagit Peer, head of the Na’amat women’s advocacy group, decried the “shocking situation” of rising deadly crime against women, and assailed ministers for “government incompetence” on the matter.

“When a minister in the State of Israel is whining about the law and refusing to appear for questioning, when other ministers are mainly busy abusing the rule of law instead of cooperating with it in the war on this terror, is it any wonder that we have reached a total loss of control over the situation on the streets?” she told Channel 12 news, referring to a number of recent incidents involving government ministers.

Last week, the Israel Women’s Network demanded action to stop the “criminal negligence of the National Security Ministry” — headed by far-right minister Itamar Ben Gvir —  saying it has “failed in its job of protecting women from violence in Israel.”

On Tuesday, the network, alongside the Michal Sela Forum and the families of a number of murder victims, said that the silence surrounding the killing of women — in all sectors of society in Israel — was becoming “normalized.”

The organizations called for an emergency cabinet meeting ahead of the Jewish holiday season, which tends to see a rise in domestic violence.

The groups said that on average, a woman is murdered every eight days in Israel, with 64 women killed due to their gender since the start of the war on October 7, 2023.

Haifa stabbing

Earlier Wednesday, a 19-year-old man was stabbed and killed in Haifa. Police said they have opened an investigation into the killing of Muhammad Morad. There have been no arrests.

According to the Abraham Initiatives, a coexistence watchdog that tracks violence, 182 Arabs have been killed violently since the start of the year, including 19 women, marking a 7 percent increase over last year’s record-setting murder rate.

There were ⁠152 members of the Arab community shot and killed, and 90 of the victims were aged 30 or under.