Israeli Arab woman, Rasha Sitawi, 32, was found dead on Thursday in a home at the Druze-majority town of Maghar during the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, police suspects she was shot to death.
Paramedics of the Magen David Adom (MDA) ambulance service pronounced the woman dead upon arriving at the scene. Since the beginning of the year, 22 women have been murdered, 15 of whom in the Arab sector alone. All in all, 118 Arab citizens and Palestinians were murdered this year as a wave of violence scourges the sector.
MDA emergency paramedic Khaled Zoab who arrived at the scene said "we joined the police force and entered the apartment, the woman was lying unconscious and with penetrating injuries in her body. We performed a medical examination and a test, but she showed no signs of life, so we had to call her death."
Police officers that treated a car accident in Maghar were called by locals who heard the gunfire. The police arrived at the scene, spotted the woman with gunshot wounds on her body, and started to gather evidence and search for the suspect. The motive was not clear and no arrests have yet been made.
Ahead of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, which takes place on November 25, the Women’s International Zionist Organization (WIZO) released an annual report which showed that the number of domestic violence complaints between spouses in Israel jumped by 315 percent in 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
WIZO’s data showed that 26 women were murdered in Israel in 2020, compared to 17 in 2019. There was also a massive uptick in the number of distress calls made to the 118 domestic violence hotline, from 2,286 calls in 2019 to 5,866 calls a year later, a 157% increase. Of these, more than half were instances of spousal violence, also known as intimate partner violence; the number of calls related to spousal violence jumped from 688 calls in 2019 to 2,853 calls in 2020, a 315% spike.
Meanwhile, Transport Minister Merav Michaeli, who also chairs the newly established ministerial committee on gender equality, announced on Sunday that Israel will allocate NIS 155 million ($50 million) to help fight domestic violence.