Increasing Mental Disorders Among Occupation Soldiers After Participating in the War on Gaza

The Hebrew newspaper "Haaretz" revealed an increase in mental disorders among soldiers of the occupation army following their participation in the war on Gaza.

It quoted six reserve soldiers interviewed by the newspaper, who spoke about their suffering from severe mental disorders after participating in the war in the Gaza Strip.

The scenes of killing and destruction that lasted for two years led to some Israeli soldiers suffering from panic attacks and mental disorders, according to what they told the newspaper, while one of them said that the thoughts that haunted him reached the point of thinking about burning himself.

On Tuesday, the number of Israeli soldiers who committed suicide since the start of the genocide war on October 8, 2023, rose to 61, after one soldier committed suicide inside a military base in the north of the country.

The soldiers spoke to "Haaretz" about their suffering from "acute post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms" as a result of what they experienced during the war.

Tomer Badani (48 years old), a reserve soldier who served in the army's body identification unit, described the horror of the scenes he faced during his mission, saying, "You don't see a person who died with his eyes closed as in the movies, but you see parts of corpses, unfamiliar things."

Badani added, "In high temperatures, flesh and bones stick to the structures of tanks and armored personnel carriers."

He continued, "I held a soldier's liver after separating his body from the armored vehicle."

He pointed out the presence of insects and the arrival of burned bodies that were difficult to identify, noting that "after an incident where 21 soldiers were killed, he did not speak a word for three days."

He confirmed that his mental state reached a point where he saw that "the only salvation" might be "burning himself at the entrance to the rehabilitation wing."

In a second story, Naveh Amsalem (31 years old), who worked as a medic in the 551st Brigade of the army, said that the feeling of fear has become constant with him.

He added that "every time I leave the house, it is accompanied by fear, I don't know what might trigger a violent outburst or a psychological dissociation in me, it could be a sound or just a suspicious person, but what I fear most is hearing someone speaking Arabic."

Amsalem indicated that "the matter 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 mentioned that he once experienced a psychological dissociation that made him lose consciousness for a few minutes, during a walk he took with his dog in August last year, after seeing "an Arab person bleeding on the sidewalk."

In turn, Liyam Haika, a soldier in the Rescue and Relief Brigade under the Home Front Command, said that her ability to sleep and live normally disappeared after witnessing horrific scenes during the war.

Haika continued, "I was in Jabalia and Beit Lahia (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 was normal, as if we had not been in a battlefield moments ago, but I felt severe distress, and I could no longer sleep."

She pointed out that the Israeli authorities ignored her requests for help, and that she now suffers permanently from post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms.

Haika continues, saying, "I dreamed of militants approaching me from a close distance carrying an RPG and I was shooting at them without them dying."

She added: "In another nightmare, I saw myself searching for the bodies of my family members."

In turn, the newspaper quoted Asaf Azer, a reserve soldier in the engineering corps, saying that he witnessed the killing of soldiers in northern Gaza, moments he said formed a deep psychological shock for him.

Azer narrates, "We were stationed in a house in Beit Hanoun, and one of our soldiers went up to the roof and was hit by a bullet and fell at our feet with moderate injuries, then we started demolishing one house after another."

He added that after about two weeks, he saw soldiers and an officer running in one of the alleys towards a house, before returning after half an hour carrying the officer on a stretcher.

He continued, "We were standing there, a group of men around a stretcher crying. The scene was unreal, amid explosions and gunfire in the background."

He also confirmed that the next day he himself was injured in an explosion caused by an operation carried out by the army, continuing "I and another soldier were standing near a house, and the house exploded above us. Our forces blew up the site without knowing we were there."

For his part, Henri Ben Shabat, a specialist in equipment in the reserve forces of the Fifth Brigade, said that he has begun suffering from severe anger outbursts as a result of the sounds of explosions and scenes of buildings collapsing on their inhabitants.

He added, "The forces planted explosives in two buildings in preparation for demolishing them, but an RPG rocket launched by militants who came out of a tunnel led to the detonation of the explosives, causing the two buildings to collapse on everyone who was inside them."

He continued, "21 soldiers were killed, and we entered to help in the evacuation operations, and there were scenes that are difficult to describe in words, as we participated in evacuating parts of bodies to identify them."

He added, "I started suffering from anger outbursts, and I became terrified of the simplest sounds, and I could no longer sleep."