Reshet 13 Anchor Breaks Down Live on Air Over Brutal Daycare Abuse Case

A routine morning broadcast on Reshet 13 turned emotional on Sunday as anchor Rotem Yisrael broke down in tears on live television while discussing a harrowing indictment filed at the District Court against three staff members of the "Lucik" daycare facility in Ariel.

The indictment targets daycare director Natalia Kasilvsky and caregivers Darina Chalufa and Anna Peglasky. The defendants face a lengthy series of charges involving relentless abuse and assault, encompassing some 400 documented cases of systematic violence against 17 helpless infants and toddlers aged six months to three years. According to court filings, the accused employed brutal punishment methods that included tying up babies, locking them in rooms, and repeated choking incidents that in some cases resulted in loss of consciousness.

Opening her program with a direct reference to the shocking case, Yisrael struggled to maintain her composure. "I want to say something about this because this is our time to use our power," she said with a choked voice. "Following the publication of the indictment filed against these three monsters—I refuse to call them caregivers in any way..."

Speaking through tears, the anchor revealed the deep emotional toll she experienced after reviewing investigative materials and testimonies from the nursery. "These three monsters are accused of 400 incidents of violence against 17 toddlers. And those are only the documented ones—heaven only knows what else happened before," she added. "I made a mistake and read part of the indictment details. If you do not have a strong heart, do not do it, because in my eyes this is one of the hardest cases that has ever occurred here."

Yisrael described the details that horrified her most, highlighting the helplessness of the infants facing daily abuse. "Beyond the violence, the tying up, and the choking until loss of consciousness, the hardest thing for me to read was the physical abuse of very small toddlers. They saw their friends being abused and approached them crying in an attempt to comfort them."

The anchor concluded with a firm and direct appeal to the judicial system, demanding the harshest possible punishment for the defendants to create true deterrence. "The court has a role—if these terrorist monsters do not receive the harshest punishment to send a message, we are truly lost. I have never encountered anything like this. I hope the court understands it has a role representing an entire nation, nothing less."