Every Nine Days: Amal Marks the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women

This year, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women finds Israeli society facing a harsh and painful reality. Since January, 44 women have been murdered in Israel, 32 of them in cases defined as femicide – gender-based killing of women – making 2025 the most dangerous year for women here since monitoring began. In practice, this means that on average a woman is murdered roughly every nine days, and Arab women continue to bear a disproportionate share of this deadly violence. Behind every number stands a name, a family, a classroom, and a community left shattered.

Yet murder is only the final, visible stage of a much wider continuum of abuse. Studies and police data show a sharp rise in domestic violence referrals in the last two years, while only a small fraction of women who are later murdered had ever managed to file a complaint before their deaths. Alongside physical and sexual violence, many women live for years under “quiet” patterns of harm: financial violence that blocks access to bank accounts and economic independence, obsessive monitoring of phones and movements, and ongoing emotional and verbal attacks that erode their confidence and isolate them from family and friends. In the digital sphere, women – and especially Arab and Palestinian women – face waves of online harassment, threats, and exposure on social media, which extend patriarchal control into every corner of their lives and silence their voices in the public arena.

The current situation is not inevitable, and it is not “a private matter.” The government must adopt and fully fund a comprehensive national plan against violence, pass long-delayed legislation that recognizes economic, technological, and emotional violence in the law, expand technological monitoring of dangerous offenders, and join international conventions that set binding standards for protecting women. The police and the courts must improve risk assessment, enforce restraining and monitoring orders more decisively, close the loopholes that allow easy access to weapons for violent men, and ensure that every complaint – particularly from women who have already signaled that their lives are in danger – is treated with urgency and seriousness.

Civil society, educational systems, and each of us as individuals also carry responsibility. Organizations on the ground have already shown that early identification, legal and therapeutic support, and community advocacy can save lives, but they need stable budgets, cooperation from state authorities, and active partnership from the public. As a national educational network, Amal is committed to promoting gender equality, teaching students to identify patterns of control and abuse – offline and online – and cultivating a culture of listening, respect, and zero tolerance for violence. On this day, Amal joins the call of women across all sectors of Israeli society: to widen the circle of protection, to believe women when they speak, and to ensure that no girl or woman stands alone in the face of violence.