research on domestic violence in some Arab countries has provided considerable evidence to debunk the myth that wife-battering affects only a small percentage of women. In Egypt, the Egyptian Demographic and Health Survey of 1995 (El Zanaty et al., 1996), conducted among a national random sample of 14, 779 women, indicated that one out of three Egyptian women ever married has been beaten at least once since marriage and one
third of those were abused during pregnancy. In Palestine, two national surveys were undertaken in the West Bank and Gaza Strip using
systematic random samples of respectively 2,410 (1994) and 1,334 (1995) married Palestinian women (Haj Yahia, 2001). The results showed that up to 34% of women participating in the first survey and 37% of those participating in the second survey reported having experienced one or more acts of physical violence at least once during the 12 months
