The Knesset's Interior Committee, headed by MK Yitzhak Kreuzer, will discuss tomorrow (Wednesday) the failure to address the severe sewage overflows in the city of Bnei Brak.
The discussion, initiated by Yaakov Wider, a member of the Bnei Brak City Council, is taking place after a long period of complaints from residents and accompanied by harsh documentation, in which streets throughout Bnei Brak are flooded with sewage and stench, especially on Shabbats and holidays, with children and babies forced to walk through huge streams of sewage.
According to Wieder, Mayor Hanoch Seibert was summoned to the hearing, but refused to confirm his participation, and his office claimed that "he is abroad" - a strange claim, in light of the publications that he was among the organizers of the "Million Rally" on Thursday.
Seibert's office did not respond to a request from Haredim 10.
It should be noted that the organizing committee of the 'Million Rally' convened this evening for a lengthy work session - and among those present was Mayor Seibert.
Hanoch Seibert, left, this evening. Photo: Spokesperson
In the background document he submitted to the committee, Wider wrote: "Bnei Brak is located in the heart of the Dan Bloc and has about a quarter of a million residents, and sewage flooding there not only harms the city's residents and its many guests, but also endangers neighboring cities.".
Vider warned: "This is a continuing management failure that endangers lives and requires immediate attention, full transparency and a real rehabilitation plan - no more patches and excuses.""
According to him, "The Bnei Brak municipality is one of the richest in Israel, with a budget of approximately 2.5 billion shekels for 2025, and there is no justification for the city's residents to live amidst rivers of sewage and stench. Today in the Knesset, the residents of Bnei Brak will demand answers from the municipality's businessmen.".
Wider thanked MK Yitzhak Kreuzer for his quick response to hold the discussion and for his courageous stand alongside the residents, and clarified that an inter-ministerial team should be established - the Ministries of the Interior, Health and Environmental Protection - to oversee immediate treatment of the infrastructure, and to require the municipality to publish a public annual report on the status of the sewage system and the budgets allocated to it.
Vider: "The committee includes members including MK Moshe Arbel of Shas, who until recently served as Minister of the Interior, and MK Yaakov Asher of United Torah Judaism, a resident of Bnei Brak, who also served as mayor, and whose parties have run the city for decades and are responsible, among other things, for its condition. It will be interesting to see whether they will participate in the discussion or choose to boycott it.".
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