Two nursery teachers have been arrested on suspicion of nearly 600 counts of abusing and attacking infants at an Israeli daycare centre in Kiryat Gat.

On Monday, police in Israel’s Southern District police recommended charges against the two nursery teachers on nearly 600 cases of abusing babies.

Infants aged 18 months to two years were allegedly abused at the nursery in the southern Israeli city.

The police investigation began in early April following the suspected abuse of a two-year-old girl at the nursery.

A special police team was formed to collect and analyse hundreds of hours of surveillance footage from the nursery's security cameras.

Police said they had recorded 589 counts of abuse inflicted on 14 infants. Parents have been called into the station to file complaints.

The two teachers, aged 23 and 34, were arrested on Sunday. They are expected to be charged with attacking helpless minors under their care, as well as other offences.

Chief Inspector Yossi Mizrahi said, “The suspects’ unusual and violent behaviour toward the infants was clear and repeated time after time across hundreds of incidents that were difficult to watch.”

One mother told Israeli channel, Kan, that one of the children was “lynched.”

“The teacher encouraged all the children to hit one boy, and they hit and kicked him and pulled his hair. The teacher stood on the side and watched them do it,” she said.

Another parent said that their daughter had repeatedly come home with bruises, but they did not believe it was because of abuse from the teachers, according to Kan.

“The abuse was discovered when one of the children came home with bruises on her back and her mother didn’t believe the teacher and sent her to daycare with a recording device,” the parent said.

Chief Inspector Mizrahi said: “Unfortunately, this isn’t the first case we’ve come across in recent months and we are experienced.”

In recent weeks, four nursery teachers from another daycare centre in Kiryat Gat were arrested on suspicion of 166 charges of abuse of 23 children aged 3 and younger.

In 2021, Carmel Mauda, the head of a daycare centre in Rosh Ha’ayin, was sentenced to more than nine years in prison after footage showed her and others abusing babies as young as three months old.