Gender violence in Israel: Country sees 20 femicide cases this year

There were 20 cases of femicide, the intentional killing of a woman because she is female, in 2024, according to Hebrew University’s research organization Israel Observatory on Femicide (IOF).

This is around the same rate as in the previous year, the observatory said Sunday. It is important to note that women murdered in the October 7 attack were not included in the 2023 IOF data because information on specific instances of femicide in the attack is limited.

Of the cases where the attacker is known, in half the 2024 cases, the suspect was the husband of the victim, and in the vast majority of cases, the victim knew the suspect, according to the IOF.

Some 40% of the women killed in 2024 were Jewish, and around half were Arab Israelis (including Bedouin). Two women murdered had foreign citizenship, the IOF said. In all cases in which the attacker was known, except for the femicides of women with foreign citizenship, the ethnicity of the suspected attacker was the same as that of the victim.

In four of the cases, the victim had complained to police about domestic violence before her murder. “In other cases, the murderer was known to the authorities, had a criminal record, or suffered from mental illness,” the IOF added.

'Women's lives matter!'

Only cases in which the victim is over age 18 are considered cases of femicide. The average age of 2024's femicide victims was 40, the IOF reported. The youngest victim was 24, and the oldest was 72.

The average age of those suspected or convicted of the murder was 42; the youngest was 19, and the oldest 83.

Stabbing was the most common method of killing used in femicides in 2024, with 40% of victims killed by stabbing. Some 10% were shot, a victim was run over by her attacker, and another was burned.

The observatory, established in 2020, uses media reports, police reports, and interviews with lawyers and families to collect and track data on the murder of women over age 18 in Israel.

Examples of femicide include "honor killings," murder as part of domestic violence, matricide, and more.

This was the first report in which the IOF also reported on murders that were not defined as femicides, following what the observatory called a new trend in which female victims were targeted as an "asset" or "property" belonging to men. In this trend, nine women were murdered in 2024 as part of underworld struggles, the IOF said.

There is a significant gap between data on the murder of women collected by Israel Police and by the IOF this year, the observatory said. This amounted to a 22% gap between police and IOF data, which the observatory said stemmed from "disparities in case investigations and indictments, particularly within the Arab community."

"The heinous crime of femicide, the murder of women in Israeli society just because they are women, continues this year unabated," said observatory head Prof. Shalva Weil.

"The government has to pay attention to the plight of women in society, even if a war is raging. Women’s lives matter!”