On video: An aide from the north is accused of assaulting a toddler: "She used to wake up with nightmares" (Walla system!)
"The girl pointed to a picture in which the assistant is seen and said, 'This kindergarten teacher beat me'" (photo: official website, no)
An indictment was filed last week against Natalie Eli, a kindergarten aide living in Haifa, for multiple incidents of assaulting a toddler - this was allowed to be published today (Sunday).
The events were revealed in October 2020, after they were recorded by the garden cameras over several days.
The Haifa police investigated.
And after more than two years, the Haifa district attorney's office filed the indictment.
On the one hand, the parents are satisfied with the fact that it was submitted, on the other hand, they say "too little too late".
The assistant, a 34-year-old resident of the Neve Yosef neighborhood, worked at the "Ba Li Gan" kindergarten in the Sabioni Dania neighborhood of the city.
She is accused of assaulting R., who was about two years old at the time.
According to the indictment, in several incidents, the aide attacked the toddler while forcibly leading her, aggressively pushed her away from the dining table, forcibly grabbed her arm, forcibly pulled her and pushed her legs with her knee.
In one instance, when the girl objected to her actions, she picked her up under her arm and led her from the dining room in the garden to the playroom, where she sat her down aggressively in a chair, leaving her crying for long minutes.
In another case, the toddler dropped a spoon - and was punished by 13 minutes in which the assistant did not allow her to eat.
"We waited a long time for this. We prayed for this moment," she told Walla!
Far-Lee, R's mother, is a teacher by profession.
"The filing of the indictment is a joy mixed with sadness. We waited two years and the word 'abuse' does not appear in it. At the prosecutor's office they told us that they did their best, but maybe someone there did not recognize the seriousness of the events. Our girl was systematically denied food. Animals do not behave like that either. This Heartbreaking. A week ago, the girl pointed to a picture of the assistant and said, 'This kindergarten teacher beat me.' Not to file a complaint. It was only because of the determination of the 'Mahabat Headquarters' that they did not close the case."
The message sent by the assistant to the toddler's mother (photo: official website, no)
Regarding what the family has been through since the incident, she added: "We have all experienced a great upheaval. Today the girl is five years old, and she also went through not easy years. We took her out of this kindergarten and for a whole year she was not in kindergarten at all because we felt that we could not trust anyone. She was Waking up with nightmares. Sometimes she would cry for two or three hours at night. She had a crazy regression and went back to wetting. All this during the Corona period, when we couldn't go to kindergarten and my husband and I had to do all the work. You can say that I'm still in total trauma. I myself had to I took a sabbatical from my job as a teacher and am thinking of not returning to the profession.
It's hard for me to think about more children at all."
Alona Daniel, from the headquarters of the struggle for the children, said that "for two and a half years the crushed parents and we, at the headquarters of the struggle, have been waiting for justice for this little girl. Dozens of applications to the prosecutor's office, constitutional committees and more, for them to file an indictment in such a clear case of harming a helpless woman. We were very disappointed to learn That the prosecutor's office sees this as just an assault, when any reasonable person will understand that this girl experienced mental abuse at the very least, apparently. We will continue to demand that the indictment be aggravated and hope that the judge may understand that the award given here to the caregiver in the form of a mitigating indictment is an inappropriate act."
According to her, "Our children deserve true justice, and an adult who chooses to humiliate, molest, and scar the soul of a helpless toddler, should know that the consequences for this will be extremely severe. Let us take comfort in knowing that today we can finally wish that you helped on the way to prison!"
Assistant: "I myself am broken"
After it became clear to the aide that her actions had been recorded and exposed, she sent an apology to the parents.
"After watching the videos in which I behaved inappropriately, I was disappointed in myself and my behavior," she wrote to them.
"I gather the courage to send you this message with my sincere and painful apology. I'm really sorry, I don't know what happened to me, this is not the way I usually tend to behave."
She asked for forgiveness and asked for an opportunity to "restore the broken trust between us".
But now, when it became clear to her that the case will be handled in court, she intends to fight the charges.
"Justice has yet to be served," she said to Walla!
in her reference to the indictment.
"The media inflated it. I myself am broken. I loved the children very much and after they broke my heart like this I no longer work with children. I love the profession very much, but I am not capable. Everything will become clear in court. Not everything should be believed."
news
News in Israel
Criminal and legal news
Tags
Haifa
Child abuse
