Five-year-old girl found tied lying in urine and excrement in Lod

Superintendent Eli Gilles, who arrived at the apartment and found the girl, described the events Tuesday in the program of Ben Caspit and Arie Eldad on Radio 103 FM.

By ALON HOCHMON
Abuse of minors. (photo credit: PIXABAY)
Abuse of minors.
(photo credit: PIXABAY)
The vigilance of a bystander led to the arrest on Sunday of the parents of a five-year-old girl in Lod on suspicion of severe child abuse and neglect. On Tuesday, the remand of the couple was extended in the Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court.
Superintendent Eli Gilles, who arrived at the apartment and found the girl, described the events on Tuesday in Ben Caspit and Arie Eldad’s radio program on 103 FM.
“Around 7 p.m., a report was received of a girl crying for a long time,” he said. “Police arriving at the scene heard the cries.
Knocking on the door, there was no response. In seconds, they broke down the door, entered the apartment, heard the cry and saw a five-year-old girl with her hands and feet bound to the shower door in a term police call a ‘banana,’ a very tight knot.
It took the officers some time to release the girl with a special knife. The girl was lying in urine and feces. It’s not something we see every day.”
Gilles said that, “The parents deny anything. They say they left the house and the girl was asleep. When they came back, they saw her lying in the shower.”
“We were amazed to find that this girl does not exist [in the Interior Ministry] of the State of Israel,” he added. “The girl is unknown. She does not have a [birth certificate], an ID card [or national] insurance. She does not exist.”
Attorney Hai Oz and Shukar Abu-Tabik, a lawyer for the father suspected of abuse, noted that “The girl is in the hospital, receiving treatment as the police representative revealed at the court hearing, and her father is also waiting for a child service investigation to shed light on the affair.”
He denied that the parents had chained their daughter to the shower door, and said they had left her sleeping in her bed.
“They are completely normal parents who would never do what they have been accused of,” the lawyer said.
The girl is currently in the custody of Lod’s welfare services and is hospitalized at Assaf Harofeh Medical Center in moderate condition.
Translated by Gil Zohar.


Related Tags
Lod
israeli police
child abuse