A two-year-old toddler was bitten by a rat today (Monday) while playing in his daycare center in Bnei Brak.
Parents at the nursery claimed that they contacted the municipality several times and warned about rats on the premises, but were ignored.
For the last year, the city of Bnei Brak has been plagued by a large number of rats, and the problem has only gotten worse in recent months. Experts have explained that the many construction works in the city have led to the rodents emerging from undergrown in greater numbers than usual.
City Councilman Ya'akov Vider, the chairman of the Likud party in the city, appealed to the Health Ministry to intervene to deal with the rat infestation. "The municipality of Bnei Brak is endangering the lives of the residents through its conduct," he claimed.
The nursery where the child was bitten stated that after receiving no response from the municipality, they privately exterminated the rodents in the building, but the infestation is so severe that even this method is no longer helpful.
At the city council meeting, Vider brought up the rat infestation and demanded that the municipality deal with the phenomenon immediately. Vider confronted mayor Avraham Rubinstein and his deputy Hanoch Seibert and slammed them for "playing at the expense of the residents of Bnei Brak while they are suffering greatly from a plague of rats that endangers human life and also damages property."
"Instead of making new jobs and roles for the benefit of their close associates, they should invest the residents' money in cleaning and eradicating the terrible scourge," he added.