The Hebrew newspaper Haaretz revealed a sharp rise in psychological disorders among occupation army soldiers following their participation in the war on Gaza.
The newspaper quoted six reserve soldiers it interviewed, who spoke about suffering from severe psychological disorders after taking part in the war in the Gaza Strip.
Scenes of killing and destruction that continued over a two year period led a number of Israeli soldiers to experience panic attacks and serious psychological distress, according to their testimonies. One of them said that the thoughts he experienced reached the point of considering setting himself on fire.
On Tuesday, the number of Israeli soldiers who have committed suicide since the start of the war of extermination on 8 October 2023 rose to 61, after one soldier took his own life inside a military base in the north of the country.
The soldiers told Haaretz that they are suffering from what they described as acute post traumatic stress disorder symptoms as a result of what they lived through during the war.
Tomer Badani, 48 years old, a reserve soldier who served in the army’s unit responsible for identifying the dead, described the horror of the scenes he encountered during his mission. He said, “You do not see a person who died with their eyes closed like in the films. You see body parts, things that are unfamiliar.”
Badani added, “In high temperatures, flesh and bones stick to the frames of tanks and armoured personnel carriers.”
He continued, “I held a soldier’s liver after separating his body from the armoured vehicle.”
He pointed to the presence of insects and the arrival of burned bodies that could not be identified, explaining that “after an incident in which 21 soldiers were killed, I did not utter a single word for three days.”
He confirmed that his psychological state reached a level where he felt that “the only escape” might be “setting myself on fire at the entrance of the rehabilitation wing.”
In a second account, Navih Emsalem, 31 years old, who worked as a medic in the army’s 551st Brigade, said that a sense of fear now accompanies him constantly.
He added, “Every time I leave the house, fear comes with me. I do not know what might trigger a violent outburst or a state of dissociation inside me. It could be a sound or just a suspicious looking person. But what I fear most is hearing someone speaking Arabic.”
Emsalem pointed out that “this is very difficult for me, because I am not racist and I do not hate Arabs, but after what happened, I cannot risk losing control.”
He also spoke of experiencing a dissociative episode that caused him to lose consciousness for a few minutes during a walk with his dog in August last year, after he saw “an Arab person bleeding on the pavement.”
For her part, Liyam Haika, a soldier in the Rescue and Relief Brigade affiliated with the Home Front Command, said that her ability to sleep and live a normal life vanished after witnessing horrific scenes during the war.
Haika continued, “I was in Jabalia and Beit Lahia in northern Gaza and participated in evacuating the wounded. I saw dead soldiers, amputated limbs, blood everywhere, people screaming for help, chaos and terror.”
She added, “It was expected that we would continue our lives as if everything were normal, as if we had not just been on a battlefield moments earlier. But I felt extreme distress and I could no longer sleep.”
She indicated that the relevant Israeli authorities ignored her requests for help, and that she now suffers continuously from symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder.
Haika went on to say, “I would dream of armed men approaching me from a very short distance carrying an RPG, and I would shoot at them without them dying.”
She added, “In another nightmare, I saw myself searching for the bodies of my family members.”
The newspaper also quoted Asaf Azar, a reserve soldier in the engineering corps, who said that he witnessed the killing of soldiers in northern Gaza, moments he described as forming a deep psychological shock.
Azar recounted, “We were stationed in a house in the town of Beit Hanoun. One of our soldiers went up to the roof, was shot, and fell at our feet with moderate injuries. Then we began demolishing one house after another.”
He added that about two weeks later, he saw soldiers and an officer running through an alley towards a house, before returning half an hour later carrying the officer on a stretcher.
He continued, “We were standing there, a group of men around a stretcher, crying. The scene was unreal, with explosions and gunfire in the background.”
He also confirmed that the following day he himself was injured by an explosion caused by an operation carried out by the army, saying, “Another soldier and I were standing near a house when the house exploded on top of us. Our forces blew up the site without knowing we were there.”
For his part, Henry Ben Shabat, an equipment specialist in the reserve forces of the Fifth Brigade, said that he now suffers from severe anger attacks due to the sounds of explosions and the sight of buildings collapsing on those inside them.
He added, “The forces planted explosive devices in two buildings in preparation for demolishing them, but an RPG fired by fighters who emerged from a tunnel led to the detonation of the explosives, causing the two buildings to collapse on everyone inside.”
He continued, “Twenty one soldiers were killed, and we entered to assist with evacuation operations. There were scenes that are difficult to describe in words, as we took part in evacuating body parts for identification.”
He concluded, “I began to suffer from bouts of rage, I was terrified by the simplest sounds, and I was no longer able to sleep.”
