In the Arab neighbourhoods of Ramla everyone knew Hamda's days were numbered. Her name was on a blacklist of women whose behaviour upset the gangs in Jawarish, one of the poorest parts of this ill-famed suburb of Tel Aviv. Since 2000, seven women belonging to the Abu Ghanem clan had already been murdered for reasons as trifling as their refusal to accept an arranged marriage, or for a smile exchanged with a man in the street.

Hamda Abu Ghanem, 19, was the eighth victim. In January the police found her body riddled with bullets at her parents' home. She was reportedly punished for talking on the phone to her cousin. Much as Naifa, Suzan, Zinat, Sabrin, Amira, Reem and Shirihan before her, Hamda was the victim of an "honour" killing, to wash away the supposed affront to her family's reputation.

About 10 Arab Israeli women die every year, falling foul of a tradition that also persists in the Occupied Territories. "Such crimes used to be justified by accusations of extramarital sex," says Aida Touma-Suliman of Women Against Violence, an NGO based in Nazareth. "But with women living in an increasingly open environment, thanks in particular to longer studies, some men feel more threatened. Taking a harmless liberty may be seen as a major challenge to their authority."

In a survey of Israel's Arab community in 2005 a third of those polled said they could "understand" honour killings. But Hamda's death marks a turning point, finally breaching the conspiracy of silence in Ramla. The veil of fear and tacit consent that once covered such acts has been torn apart.

"Usually when we get to the scene of a crime it looks as if nothing has happened," says Yifrach Duchovny, the local police commander. "There is no sign of any blood. Everything has been cleaned up and the father can walk past the body of his daughter without displaying the slightest emotion. And by some odd coincidence none of the victim's relatives have seen or heard anything."

With no witnesses, charges were brought for only one of the seven previous murders. But after the latest killing about 20 women agreed to help the police. Hamda's brother has been arrested for her murder. "Things have gone too far," says Samah Aghbariya, who runs a women's social centre in Ramla. "This crime was so wrong. Everyone knew Hamda was innocent. The women were very upset and decided there had been enough killing."

"The Israelis like to think they have established a more enlightened government here," says Touma-Suliman. "Unlike the criminal law in force in the Occupied Territories [which punishes honour killings with a very short prison sentence] Israeli law takes murder seriously. The welfare network, albeit inadequate, provides better coverage too. But at the same time the dispossession and poverty we have endured since Israel was established encourages our leaders to hang on to their last scrap of authority, governing the family. With no influence over the larger political arena, they are reduced to defending social and cultural values, holding up the change in standards we sorely need.

"It is too easy to lay all the blame for this crime on a conspiracy of silence. At the end of the 1990s we gave the Ramla police station a list of women at risk. No one paid any attention and five of them have been killed." Touma-Suliman maintains that the Israeli police and legal system, even the media, have a blinkered attitude to honour killing. "They are convinced that the murder of a Jewish woman is a criminal act, whereas when Arabs kill their womenfolk it is just part of their culture. But the truth of the matter in Jawarish is much more complex. The killers are delinquents, often with a long criminal record. Eliminating the women is one way of keeping control over their territory. If the police had made any serious attempt to stop drug trafficking, for example, some of these crimes could have been avoided."

A case in point is the murder of Reem Abu Ghanem in March 2006. She had run away from her parents' home with her lover to escape an arranged marriage. Subsequently she agreed to go home after her brothers signed an undertaking not to do her any harm. Only a few days later she was drugged, strangled and dumped in a well. "It was bound to happen," says Touma-Suliman with a sigh. "Why did the police send her home?"

Aghbariya emphasises the shortage of social workers in the Arab quarters. "There are only four of us, serving a population of 18,000," she says. "This problem is obviously not a priority for the authorities. But anyway it is only a part of the solution. We need to establish closer links between our community and government bodies. Above all we need to do a lot more to improve education and public awareness."

In March, Aghbariya organised a meeting for police, teachers, social workers and even the sheikh from the mosque. There is no time to lose. Everyone agrees that the killers are determined to silence the women who spoke out. The main prosecution witness disappeared a few weeks ago. The people of Jawarish fear that she may already be the Abu Ghanem clan's ninth victim. Le Monde