"You could not have known. Toward you, the defendant made an excellent impression." With these words, Judge Michal Barak Nevo of the Lod District Court addressed the parents of infants harmed at a Hod Hasharon daycare, after sentencing assistant Rawan Abd al-Hai to ten years in prison. Abd al-Hai was convicted of 277 counts of violence against eight infants, some as young as eight months.
Beyond the prison term, the court ordered the assistant to pay 450,000 shekels in compensation, to be divided among the parents according to the degree of harm to each child. Suspended sentences were also imposed.
Abd al-Hai worked as an assistant in the infant group at "Sigal's Gan" in Hod Hasharon. Between May and July 2023, a span of only three months, she carried out repeated acts of violence against eight infants in her care, aged between eight months and a year and a half.
In April, the assistant was convicted of a series of grave offenses: nine counts of abuse of a helpless minor by a caretaker, 146 counts of assault on a helpless person causing actual bodily harm, and 122 counts of assault under aggravating circumstances.
"Those unable to care for infants should stay away from daycare centers"
In its verdict, the court emphasized the violence and cruelty directed at some of the infants, stressing the severity of the acts precisely because the victims were young babies, some not yet walking, others unable to speak or tell their parents what had happened to them at the daycare.
In sentencing, the judge addressed the harm caused to each infant and cited the Supreme Court, which emphasized that each push or injury must not be examined in isolation, but rather as part of the daily routine to which the children were exposed.
"There is no place for such corrupt acts, and no tolerance should be shown toward them," the quoted ruling stated, emphasizing that violence cannot serve as an educational method, a means of maintaining order, or an outcome to be accepted due to staff fatigue and burnout.
The message from the Supreme Court precedent was clear: "Those who are unable to care for infants in a compassionate and devoted manner appropriate to them should stay away from daycare centers."
