IOF releases report on violence against Israeli women in 2023

According to the annual report of Hebrew University’s Israel Observatory on Femicide (IOF) there were 22 cases of femicide in Israel in 2023. This report provides details on the circumstances of the femicide and the background of the victims.    

The data gathered by the IOF comes from local and national media and internet reports, Google alerts, and interviews that are crosschecked with other databases, including police statistics. 

Key findings on femicide in Israel in 2023

The report states that in 2023, there were 22 cases of femicide, 1.83 femicides each month out of a total of over 30 women murdered during the year. All of the perpetrators were men.

Compared with 2022, this is an 8.3% decrease in the number of femicides perpetrated in Israel. 

This is inconsistent with the reports in the media this year. The gap between this report and other reports on the subject is a result of an increase of awareness of the phenomenon in general, and a recent growing interest by several organizations in femicide. 

According to the IOF report, sometimes the murder of women reported in the media does not constitute femicide, when she is killed by accident or in a criminal act, and not on account of her gender. 

Regarding the ethnicity of the victims, 50% were Jewish, 9% were foreign nationals, and 41% were Israeli Arabs, including one Druze woman, five Bedouin women, and three Muslim women.

According to the Abraham Initiatives, in 2023, 244 people, including 16 women, were murdered in the Arab sector. Although the number of Arab citizens killed in 2023 was double that of 2022, the relative number of Arab women killed decreased. The rate of femicide amongst Israeli Arab women is disproportionate to their population size in Israel. 

“Despite the fact that violence is on the rise in the Arab sector in Israel and has doubled itself since 2022, the rate of women murdered is relatively lower, and the rate of femicide of Israeli Arab women, killed because of their gender, is slightly decreased compared to the Israeli Jewish population,” said Professor Shalva Weil, who established the IOF.

The report details the relationship between the victim and the perpetrator. In 86% of the cases, the victim knew the murderer, and in 95% of the cases, the victim and the perpetrator were of the same ethnicity. In 59% of the cases in which the identity of the murderer was known, the main suspect was the victim’s past or current partner. In four cases, a brother killed their sister, and in two cases, a son killed their mother. 

The reasoning behind the murders differed, however, in nearly all the cases, the femicides in the Arab sector were a result of the victim being perceived as harming the family honor. 

The average age of the victim was 38.1, the oldest was 76, and the youngest was 18. 

Over half the victims were stabbed, while 18% were shot. In other cases, victims were burned, pushed down stairs, hit with sharp objects, or strangled. 

Femicide and the events of October 7, 2023

A third of all femicide cases in Israel in 2023 occurred after the outbreak of the current Israel-Hamas war, according to Professor Weil.

“One third of all Israel’s femicides have taken place since the outbreak of war this year. Meanwhile, the majority of women are stabbed and not shot by the murderers. However, the stress rate is rising in Israeli society, and domestic violence may be on the rise," stated Professor Weil.

“Gender-based murders are a crime against humanity and they have to stop. They occur in every country, but no country has suffered the exponential rise in femicides this year as a result of the barbaric attack of Hamas on 7 October in which women and girls were raped and murdered and targeted because they were women.”

While the IOF does not usually include murder of women as a result of terrorist acts, it does consider many of the killings which took place on 7 October to be femicides since women were specifically targeted and were subjected sexual violence prior to being murdered.

The Hamas terrorists who attacked Israeli communities near the Gaza Strip on October 7 had manuals with detailed instructions on how to rape women before killing them.

According to Ynet, approximately 300 women were murdered in the Gaza border communities in Israel. Hundreds of men were also murdered, and some were sexually assaulted.

In response to the attacks, the IOF issued a statement urging collective condemnation of the horrific violence inflicted on Israeli women and girls.