GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — In 1984, the TV movie "The Burning Bed" opened Americans' eyes to the long-cloaked reality of domestic violence. It helped establish in American minds the validity of desperation as an extenuating circumstance in certain criminal cases.

More than 30 years later, in a statement issued Dec. 18, an alliance of Palestinian nongovernmental organizations is calling on the Palestinian judiciary to consider the effects of domestic violence as a woman appeals her death sentence in the slaying of her husband.

The case is the first in which the death penalty has been issued against a Palestinian woman since the Palestinian Authority was established in 1994. The Al Muntada alliance, which comprises 14 women's and human rights organizations, fears that carrying out the sentence would pave the way for more death penalties against Palestinian women, including those reeling from the growing phenomenon of domestic and social violence.

On Oct. 5, the First Instance Court of Khan Yunis issued a judgment convicting Nahla Abu Anzeh, 26, of murdering her husband in January and sentenced her to death by hanging.