2 caregivers suspected in deaths of babies at unlicensed Jerusalem daycare released to house arrest

The Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court orders the release to house arrest of two caregivers who were detained following the death of two babies at the unlicensed Jerusalem daycare facility where they worked.

The pair will be kept under house arrest for nine days, barred from working for 45 days, and prevented from contacting the families of the deceased for 30 days.

Ahead of the sentencing, the mother of one of the babies, 6-month-old Aharon Katz, appeared outside the courtroom to defend the caregivers.

She told the press that she did not believe they were guilty of any crime, insisting that they had cared deeply for her infant son.

“They also buried a child, it will never leave them,” she said, adding that she has known the owner of the unlicensed daycare for seven years, as her three older children had also gone there. “What has been done to them is an injustice.”

The bodies of Katz’s son and of 4-month-old Leah Goloventzitz were found on Monday morning, along with 53 other babies and toddlers with varying degrees of injuries, at the overcrowded Haredi daycare center in Jerusalem’s Romema neighborhood.

Police reportedly believe the two babies may have died of heat exhaustion and dehydration linked to a faulty heating system in the daycare.