RAMALLAH, West Bank — When Samah Bader of Hebron got married five months ago, she did not know it would be the beginning of the end. She had no clue that she would become the eighth woman to be killed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 2014. On March 4, Bader's husband, a lawyer and university instructor, stabbed her to death in their Ramallah apartment.

As reported by Al-Monitor in early 2013, the Palestinian territories experienced an increase in the number of gender-based crimes in comparison to other years. In 2012, 14 "honor crimes" were committed, while in 2013, that number almost doubled, to 27. The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics reported that 15 of the victims had resided in the West Bank, while the other 12 had lived in the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian women marked International Women’s Day with a protest in front of the presidential headquarters in Ramallah. They also presented a memorandum to President Mahmoud Abbas calling for the adoption of a draft penal code and a law on domestic violence.

The Palestinian Legislative Council has been crippled since the 2007 division between the West Bank and Gaza governments, and therefore has not passed any new legislation. Abbas, however, has unilaterally implemented tens of laws through presidential decrees. For instance, on May 15, 2011, he issued a decree stipulating the amendment of Penal Code 16 of 1960 (enforced in the West Bank) and Penal Code 74 of 1936 (enforced in Gaza) and freezing Article 340 of Penal Code 6 of 1960 (from Jordanian law). These articles relate to exonerating and mitigating excuses for commuting the sentences of those who commit honor crimes.