President Isaac Herzog addressed the ongoing wave of violence in Israel in a speech delivered at the President's residence on Monday morning, declaring it to be a "strategic challenge for the State of Israel."
Herzog opened his speech by addressing the murder of 24-year-old Hanan Abu Hait, who was killed inside her own car early on Monday morning.
"This is a time of emergency," he began. "This morning we heard with horror about another murder case in Israel. This time it was Hanan Abu Hait, a young woman, the mother of a five-year-old boy, who was murdered in cold blood, close to her home in Haifa.
Murder after murder, day after day
"This murderous wave of violence is a strategic challenge for the State of Israel, nothing less," he continued. "The hard news hits us again and again - day after day, and even several times in one day. Another is murdered and then another is murdered, all different ages in different places.
"A significant portion of them, most of them, are from Arab society."
Herzog spoke plainly, calling the persistent violence civil terrorism, and warned that "no one should think that it will stop with his neighbors and not reach him. This civil terrorism has no borders - murder and violence have no borders."
Calling for elected officials and public leaders to tackle the issue, Herzog asked for the Israeli government, the National Security Council, and the security, justice, intelligence and internal security systems "to urgently convene emergency discussions, sit down together, make decisive and firm decisions, stop the fearmongering and excuses, act with all the tools at your disposal, and lead an uncompromising war to eradicate this threat immediately."