Nationwide Strike Held In Israel In Protest Of Violence Against Women

A nation-wide strike will be held in Israel on Tuesday in protest of the sharp increase in violence against women. According to organizers, over 300 institutions have expressed support for the initiative, including 47 local municipalities, 11 labor unions and nearly 100 corporations. Events and marches are slated to take place across the country, including the observance of 24 minutes of silence at 10 am local time in memory of the two dozen women killed in domestic violence-related incidents over the past year. As reported by The Media Line’s Maya Margit, $67.5 million in Israeli government funds earmarked for programs to combat the phenomenon recently vanished, despite the allocation’s approval by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s cabinet. A recent report by The Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel exposed that some 47,000 sexual assault complaints were made in 2017, an 11 percent increase over the previous year. Meanwhile, the Women’s International Zionist Organization found that Israeli police open an average of 50 domestic violence cases every day and that some 200,000 battered women live in the Jewish state.