JAFFA, Israel – An anonymous newborn baby was found abandoned on Saturday outside a Gaza mosque, the fourth in the last month alone, according to local news outlets.
The baby, a mere few days old, was found by local residents early Saturday morning in the city’s Radwan district, and was rushed to hospital before being admitted to an orphanage, according to reports.
“There has been a spike in honor killings of women in Gaza,” a Gaza journalist who is familiar with the cases told Breitbart Jerusalem.
“Men kill their female relatives even when they have nothing but suspicion of infidelity. That’s why babies are being abandoned outside mosques and in public areas across the Strip. According to estimates, some 20 honor killings take place in Gaza annually, but to the best of my knowledge not a single person has been indicted.”
“Gazans prefer to say that the reason babies are abandoned is that people are too poor to support another child,” he said. “To me it seems like a pretext to evade talking about honor killings, a tough issue indeed. Gaza’s greatly conservative society prefers to talk about other things.”
Between 2010-2014, 64 Gaza women were victims of honor killings, Al Akhbar newspaper reported in 2014 based on data from human rights organizations. Enquiries with the Hamas police showed that all the cases were closed and the causes of death registered as “mysterious.”
The organizations said that because the law on honor killings is lenient, many opt for it when looking to settle domestic disputes, such as splitting an inheritance or dealing with dissent within a family.
The unofficial Center for Women’s Issues said that most investigations of presumed honor killings are not transparent.
In 2014, President Mahmoud Abbas issued a decree nixing the privileged status of honor killings in the Palestinian penal code, but this amendment has yet to be implemented in Gaza.
Ziad Alnajar, the chairman of Gaza’s bar association, told the paper that in cases of honor killings the law enforcement agencies are being pressured by many elements in civil society.
“In these cases, the families, community leaders, prominent sheikhs and others intervene with the investigation to bring about its prompt closure,” he said. “Even the government often intervenes.”