Hundreds women and men marched Friday afternoon, September 30, in the city of Lod to protest the gender violence and murder of women in Arab society. The march, which began in Lod’s old city and ended in a vigil outside the old municipality building, marked a week since the murder of Dua’a Abu Sharkh ­– a murder that sparked the largest-ever women’s protest movement against gender violence in the city. Among the marchers Hadash MK Aida Touma-Sliman (Joint List), the chairwoman of the parliament Committee for the Advancement of Women and Gender Equality and several Hadash and Communist Party of Israel activists from Lod and Ramleh.

Hadash MK Aida Touma-Sliman, the chairwoman of the parliament Committee for the Advancement of Women and Gender Equality (third from left) during the demonstration in Lod (Photo: Al Ittihad)

The daughters and family members of murder victims marched while wearing shirts with the names of the dead printed on their shirt, along with the sentence: “The murderer roams free.” The demonstrators shouted slogans against police inaction and against gender violence in the Arab community.

Dua’a Abu Sharkh, a mother of four who was 32 at the time her death, was murdered last Friday while in her car. She was shot while returning her children to her husband, from whom she was divorced. The family claims that he had threatened Sharkh in the past. The demonstrators have been holding daily protests outside Lod’s police station, demanding that the police take action and catch the killer.

“There are those who claim that Arab women do not complain, but this is not true,” MK Touma-Sliman says. “Arab women do complain to the police, but the cases are very often closed. The police do not take seriously their complaints. I am tracking several cases in which a woman who was facing danger came and complained, and the police simply closed the case — one of those cases were closed 15 minutes after the complaint was filed. The police have the responsibility to protect citizens.”

Related:

Protests against “Honor Killings” in Lod; Arab Dispossession in Jaffa