Two women working at a special-education kindergarten in Ramla have been removed from their roles and ordered to remain under house arrest for two weeks, on suspicion of severe abuse and neglect of a 5-year-old boy with special needs. According to the suspicion, during one of the child’s episodes, he was taken outside the kindergarten building and left alone in the yard as a punishment, with no supervision or response.
The boy allegedly remained outside for more than 20 minutes, crying and screaming in extreme heat. N12 reported that the case was exposed by chance after a neighbor living near the kindergarten heard the child and went to check on the noise. She found him outside the building alone, filmed the scene on her phone, tried to help him, and later shared the footage in local WhatsApp groups to find his parents.
The mother said she first learned of the incident from the video. “No one from the staff called me, I found out through strangers and it broke me,” said Hadar Peretz. She added, “The neighbor heard him from her house, so how is it possible the staff inside the kindergarten did not hear? He was screaming and crying.” Peretz accused the staff of trying to hide what happened and said the child was traumatized.
The family is struggling to recover, and she said she has not slept for two nights and is not functioning. Welfare professionals have recommended returning the child to the kindergarten, which is now operating with a full replacement team, to preserve continuity of care and avoid disrupting his routine. Police and the Education Ministry are still examining the circumstances. Police said Ramla investigators opened a case, questioned the two suspects, and the file will be transferred to the prosecution after the investigation. The Education Ministry called it an “extremely serious and unusual” event under police investigation and said it is being closely monitored by district inspectors, ministry professionals, and Ramla municipality.
