Pregnant woman stabbed to

death in front of her kids in

Lod; unborn baby also dies
Father and brother arrested on suspicion
of murder; doctors perform emergency
C-section in effort to save victim and
child, but neither survives
By ToI Staff • Today, 1:34 pm

A woman in the advanced stages of pregnancy

was stabbed to death Thursday morning in Lod,
with her unborn baby also killed in the attack.

Doctors at Assaf Harofeh Medical Center, where

the critically injured woman was taken,
performed an emergency caesarean operation in
an effort to save her unborn baby. However,
doctors were forced to declare them both dead.

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The woman’s father and brother were later

arrested on suspicion of murder, Hebrew-
language media reported.

Security camera footage shared on social media

showed the assailant following the woman, in her
twenties, as she walked along a street with her
two young children on their way to a nearby
kindergarten.

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In the video, the attacker pounces on the woman

from behind and repeatedly stabs her. The two
young children flee, as do other passersby.

The woman tried to defend herself but was

stabbed multiple times in her torso.

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The attacker then ran to a waiting car, which then

sped off.

Hagit Pe’er, chairwoman of the Na’amat women’s

rights group, called the stabbing an act of
“domestic terrorism” and “a double murder of the
woman and the fetus.”

“We all hope that the Israel Police will soon find
this inhuman terrorist and that Israel will serve
him justice, as should be done with terrorists,”
Pe’er said in a statement.

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According to the anti-violence Abraham

Initiatives group, the woman’s death brought to
222 the death toll from violence in the Arab
community since the start of the year. The figure
apparently didn’t include the death of her unborn
baby. It compares with 103 deaths during the
same period in 2022.

Of the homicides in 2023, 16 were women.

Also Thursday morning, a man was shot and

moderately injured in the northern Arab town of
Umm al-Fahm. According to Hebrew media
reports, the man was sitting in his car at the time.
He was taken to Emek Medical Center in Afula.

The incidents came amid a wave of deadly crime

in the Arab community.

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On Wednesday, a man was shot dead in the

southern town of Rahat. The man, in his twenties,
was not named by police, who said their initial
investigation found that the killing was probably
connected to a dispute between criminal families.

On Tuesday, two men were shot dead. In

Nazareth, 29-year-old Moanas Marwat, a
resident of the city, was critically wounded and
later died of his injuries, the Israel Police said in a
statement. Hours earlier, Issa Ghazi, a man in his
30s, was found fatally shot in a car in Kafr Qara.

The killings are part of a violent crime wave that

has engulfed the Arab community in recent
years, but which has risen this year to
unprecedented heights.

Many Arab Israeli community leaders put the

blame on the police, who they say have failed to
crack down on powerful criminal organizations
and largely ignore the violence, which includes
family feuds, mafia turf wars, and violence
against women. The communities have also
suffered from years of neglect by state
authorities.

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