About 100 women and men, together with families of 15 victims, 11 of them murdered, demonstrated last night near the house of the replacement prime minister, Minister Yair Lapid, who is expected to enter the prime minister's office next week, and demanded that he prioritize the prevention of murder of women.
They asked him to use his weight to advance a series of government decisions and operative laws on the table that would save the next murdered woman.
The demonstration, by the Michal Sala Forum, in collaboration with the Alternative Builders and the Women's Lobby in Israel and with the support of a number of civil society organizations, comes against the background of a difficult week during which 4 women in Israel were murdered against domestic violence: 28 year old 24, the late 51-year-old Samar Klasny and another 65-year-old woman from Petah Tikva.
One of the demonstrators held a sign that read: "Men say no to violence against women."
During the protest, protesters chanted: "The memory of the murdered - a revolution."
The demonstrators demanded acceptance of the Istanbul Convention.
Lapid arrived with a secure convoy from his home hundreds of meters away, went out to the demonstrators, listened to them and said he would address the issue even before the change of government.
An emergency discussion on the issue took place in the Ministerial Committee "Gender Cabinet" last Wednesday, in which 24 organizations, at the initiative of the Women's Lobby in Israel, submitted a letter of interpretation to ministers listing operative demands to prevent violence against women and murder of women.
The letter was presented to Ministers Lily Ben-Ami, the sister of the late Michal Sala and founder of the Michal Sala Forum.
Demonstration against the murder of women in front of Lapid's house, Photo: Gideon Markowitz
The letter called for immediate promotion of a number of important steps - allocating budgets, standards, and advanced tools for the prevention of violence in advance, increasing enforcement in all sectors, signing the International Convention for the Prevention of Violence against Women, and promoting and approving several laws before the dissolution of the Knesset. "Electronic Coupling Law."
The law has been stuck for more than ten years, although it is the only tool that enables the enforcement of protection orders - issued by a judge - due to domestic violence. The electronic bracelet will allow threatened women to continue their lives and not hide in a shelter. In the next Knesset.
Advocate Einat Fischer Lalo, director of the Women's Lobby in Israel, said in a demonstration: "The fight against murder of women and violence against women is not a political matter and can not wait even one more day "What can be done to prevent the next murder?"
Protest against murder of women in front of Lapid's house, Photo: Gideon Markovich
Lily Ben-Ami, CEO of the Michal Sala Forum: "Today a woman does not know that she is in danger until she is murdered. "With my sisters and brothers in blood, and we will not stop or remain silent until the Israeli government decides that women's safety is a supreme value."
Demonstrating in protest of the murder of women in front of Lapid's house, Photo: Gideon Markowitz
Moran Zer Katzenstein, founder of Bunot Alternative: "Alternative Builders have set themselves the goal of being wherever we need to protect women's rights and a safe space for women in Israel.
The government is still standing and the Knesset has not yet dispersed, and this is a golden opportunity to prove to all voters, regardless of right or left, that the elected representatives of the public are really working for us.
We have no time to wait for neither the next government nor the next murdered one.
The change needs to start now. "
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