Six-month-old infant dies in unclear circumstances at unlicensed Bnei Brak daycare

The facility reportedly served a local community of foreign workers, and was run out of the caregiver’s apartment; incident is third death of infant in daycare facility this month

By Charlie Summers

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and ToI Staff 27 January 2026, 4:51 pmUpdated at 7:59 pm

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An infant was fatally injured on Tuesday at a daycare in the Tel Aviv suburb of Bnei Brak, in an incident whose details are still unclear.

In a statement, the Israel Police said that the infant, aged around six months old, was found in critical condition and taken to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

Officers detained the daycare worker present at the scene for questioning on suspicion of causing death by negligence and of toddler neglect. At the end of the interrogation, she was taken into custody. In a statement, police said they will seek to extend her detention at a hearing set for Wednesday morning at the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court.

The daycare was unlicensed and 19 babies were present there, police said. According to the Ynet news site, it primarily served foreign workers and their children.

Staff at the daycare, located on Menachem Begin Street in Bnei Brak, said that the infant “suddenly lost consciousness while at the daycare,” according to a statement by the ZAKA emergency service.

It said that its volunteers were present at the scene to assist police, daycare staff, and the families of the children enrolled there.

Police shut down the daycare and informed the parents of the other 14 children enrolled of the development. The Education Ministry issued a 60-day administrative closure order.

The incident marks the third recent death of an infant at an unlicensed daycare, coming a week after two babies died in an unlicensed and overcrowded daycare facility in Jerusalem’s Romema neighborhood.

Rescue and security forces work at the scene of a mass-casualty incident at an illegal daycare in Jerusalem’s Haredi-majority Romema neighborhood, on January 19, 2026. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

According to Ynet, the cause of the infant’s death was not immediately clear, and the police are awaiting results from forensic testing at the Abu Kabir Institute of Forensic Medicine to shed light on the incident.

One possibility that is being examined is whether the infant fell and hit his head, Ynet reported, citing a source involved in the investigation, who cautioned that it was not clear whether this was an act of “deliberate injury” or whether it was “negligence on the part of the staff who were not supervising” the children in their care.

Unlicensed childcare facilities have presented a longstanding problem in Israel, particularly in underprivileged communities.

In the Jerusalem incident, the two babies, 6-month-old Ari Katz and 4-month-old Leah Goloventzitz, died in unclear circumstances, as authorities were prevented from performing autopsies due to the religious beliefs of the families and street protests in Haredi areas.

Police reportedly believe, however, that the deaths were due to heat exhaustion and dehydration linked to a faulty heating system in the daycare.

Haredi lawmakers have blamed the deaths on the state, pointing to cuts to daycare subsidies for young Haredi men who do not enlist as part of Israel’s military draft. The Attorney General’s Office ordered the budgets slashed after the High Court ruled in 2024 that the decades-long blanket Haredi exemption from military service had no legal basis.

Rescue and security forces work at the scene of a mass-casualty incident at an unlicensed daycare in Jerusalem’s Haredi-majority Romema neighborhood, on January 19, 2026 (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

The State of Israel offers free education to children ages 3 and up. In 2018, a new law put the Education Ministry in charge of child care for infants and toddlers aged 0-3.

The ministry runs subsidized daycares that are insufficient to accommodate the number of children in need of care. In addition, it requires private daycares with more than six children to obtain a license, while small facilities with fewer than six children are unregulated. For the 2025-2026 school year, the monthly fee for a private daycare could easily reach NIS 5,000 ($1,580).

In 2022, the state comptroller published a report about 0-3 education based on data from the prior two years. According to the report, of the almost 550,000 children under 3 in Israel, only about 150,000, or 27%, attended a subsidized public daycare, with another 35% in private daycares and 38% kept at home.

The report highlighted that the lack of spots for children was especially dire in cities and towns lower on the socioeconomic scale, particularly in ultra-Orthodox and Arab localities.

Rossella Tercatin contributed to this report.