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Dozens of women and rights activists in Bethlehem demanded stricter laws to end violence against women.
Bethlehem Arab Women Honor Killings Khawla Al-Azraq Nancy Zaboun
An Arab women Israel news photo: Flash 90
The crowd demonstrated at the site where a 29-year-old woman was stabbed to death before witnesses in broad daylight just two days earlier by her estranged husband.
Women chanted demands that the government punish those who attack them, and held banners demanding respect for women.
Police said Nancy Zaboun's husband had beaten her Sunday night, according to the Ma'an news agency. But when officers were called to the scene, they only asked him to sign a pledge not to do it again.
The next day, he slit her throat.
Zaboun's parents vowed to set up a tent in the town square in Beit Jala to condemn their daughter's murder, and to demand the death penalty for their son-in-law. Tensions are rising in the city, and there have been threats of retribution.
Four Arab women have been murdered by their relatives in PA-controlled areas of Judea, Samaria and Gaza in the past two weeks, Ma'an reported.
On Wednesday, an 18-year-old girl was stabbed to death by her own father in Tulkarm just after finishing her Iftar repast – the evening meal that breaks the daily fast in the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
"The man then put his shoes on and walked out of the house towards the police station, where he handed himself over,” reported Emirates 24/7, “still holding the blood-stained knife before giving himself up.”
The motive for the killing was not revealed in the report, but the girl was said to be “one of the top performers in the secondary school examinations in town.”
Speaking for the General Secretariat of the General Union of Palestinian Women, a coalition of 15 women's groups in Bethlehem, Khawla al-Azraq called on PA society to take responsibility for ending crimes against women.