Following murder, Knesset to investigate failure to prevent abuse
Woman’s murder in northern Israel launches ministerial investigation into local authorities’ incapability to prevent domestic violence
By TAMAR URIEL-BEERIProtesters gather in Tel Aviv to protest the rising domestic violence during the coronavirus pandemic.(photo credit: AVSHALOM SASSONI/MAARIV)
Following the murder of a 37-year-old woman by her ex-husband in the Arab city of Arrabe in northern Israel, the Committee for the Advancement of Women and Gender Equality will launch a subcommittee to investigate the failure of local authorities to prevent domestic abuse and violence.The woman, a mother of five children, was killed when her ex-husband, Rabiy’a Kna’ana, 40, crashed into her car and then stabbed her several times in the back and chest with a screwdriver before driving away. Police have been searching the region for him to no avail.Kna’ana had previously served a prison sentence for offenses unrelated to domestic violence. A decade prior, he had been arrested for firing a gun toward local businesses in Arrabe due to his opposition to the drinking of alcohol. His ex-wife, the victim, was the 17th woman murdered in the Arab sector in Israel since the beginning of the year, according to the Aman Center for Combating Violence in Arab Society.MK Oded Forer (Israel Beytenu), head of the Committee for the Advancement of Women and Gender Equality, said the committee cannot continue without ensuring that adequate effort to prevent the next murder is being made.“I say to the ministries, the police, the courts and the Prisons Service: Prepare yourselves,” he said. “The writing was on the wall.”“In the Public Security Ministry, the battle against domestic violence is not even a goal,” Forer told The Jerusalem Post.“[Public Security Minister Amir] Ohana published a list of his eight goals for the police that they must deal with during the coronavirus pandemic,” he said. “The fight against domestic violence is not even there. The fight against violence toward women is not even there. It is a complete basic misunderstanding of the situation we are in.”Former interior security minister Gilad Erdan had promised during the first coronavirus wave that on September 1 that a unit would be created to track men who were released from prison who had been imprisoned for domestic assault, Forer said.“They are usually prisoners who have a behavioral pattern that tends to be repetitive,” he said. “As you can see, there is no such unit now. All we get from [Ohana] is that he is looking into it. But in the meantime, the situation is not getting any better.”
