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Last update - 04:05 17/03/2008 Arab woman survives honor killing, avoids being 9th victim in family By Roni Singer-Heruti Tags: Israel, Honor killing, women  S. Abu Ghanem, 40, sat on a bench at the Ramle police station Sunday morning. Beneath her shirt collar could be glimpsed an open wound, the tissue red and exposed, the sole outward mark of her horrific experience a few hours earlier. She did not know where to go from there, so remained seated on the bench, her mother and brother beside her. "I'll do whatever the police tell me to do," she said, but seriously considered going home, to the city's Jawarish neighborhood, where her would-be killer was still roaming free Sunday. His aim was off, it turned out, and the gun only wounded her slightly, but as of 4:45 A.M. Sunday he was certain that he had murdered S. R Advertisement amle police believe this was yet another case of woman being targeted for "desecration of family honor." In the Abu Ghanem family, perhaps more than in any other Arab family in Israel, many of the women live under a reign of terror imposed by several of the family's young men. As Haaretz reported this year, eight women from this family were murdered in the past six years, all in connection with "family honor." Like those murdered women, S. apparently angered some of the men in the family by her conduct. "Some of them did not want me to marry the guy I'm with, who does everything for me," S. told Haaretz Sunday. S. left home for work Sunday, as usual, at 4:45 A.M. "When I got to the car, I opened the door, got in and closed it. Suddenly someone broke the window and I was shot at. I came close to getting wasted, and the bullet scraped my neck," she says, and exposes the wound. "I threw myself down on the passenger seat and he kept shooting at me. I pretended to be dead, didn't even breathe, so I wouldn't move even a little. I didn't move at all, and he left. Straightaway I pressed the car horn and didn't stop until people started coming," she said. Her mother says she heard the endless car horn and went out to see what was going on, which is how she found her daughter lying wounded in the car. Ramle police were called immediately and began searching for the shooter, while S. was briefly treated and released from Assaf Harofeh Hospital. She knows her survival was a miracle. "These are animals who did this to me. You cannot describe the feeling, that I could have died today," she said afterward. S. has the option of moving to a temporary shelter, but she is contemplating returning to the neighborhood, to live with the brother seated beside her. When he steps away for a moment, she explains that he is a good brother, that she trusts him to take care of her. Her mother insists that all of the children she raised "are pure gold every one of them," and points a finger, without naming names, at more distant relatives. "She will be at her brother's house, and when he isn't there, I will be, so someone will watch over her each time," the mother said. S. is divorced, with no children, and recently has been in a relationship with a Jewish man whom she sought to marry. Her immediate family had no objection, seemingly at least, but the police think that the idea of her marrying a Jew did not go over well with other men in the family, so this is one angle in the attempted murder investigation. S. and her mother shake their heads in despair when asked to speak about the girls in the family who were murdered. Like everyone in the neighborhood, they are familiar with every case: "I saw what they did to the others and I knew that if they did that to them, then they can hurt me too. But until today nobody ever threatened me, or gave any sign this will happen to me too," S. says. One witness in a previous case told police that some young men in the family have "black lists" naming women who "have violated the family's honor." No arrests have been made in the latest case, but the investigation is ongoing. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Banning Beijing boycott Israel's Olympic panel warns against mixing sports and politics. 20,000 strong Study released by Israeli think tank shows Hamas' military buildup in Gaza has peaked.   1.   Barbaric 05:03  |  Palestinian Muslim 17/03/08   2.   "Honor killings" and "crimes of passion" 06:54  |  hala 17/03/08   3.   The Prophet (PBUH) said... 07:18  |  Paly Druze Muslim 17/03/08   4.   #1 murder is no way to settle any matter 08:26  |  david 17/03/08   5.   # 2 amen to all you have said, hala 08:43  |  eric 17/03/08   6.   What is `honorable` about murder & violence against women? 08:49  |  Emily Smith 17/03/08   7.   Dishonor Killings 21:17  |  ERS 17/03/08   8.   great religion 04:10  |  anonomous 23/03/08   9.   Arab woman survives honor killing 15:40  |  michael mittel 12/04/08

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