Israeli soldiers from Gaza: trauma and suicide after the war

Israeli soldiers from Gaza: trauma and suicide after the war

Editor's Note: This story contains details about suicide that some readers may find distressing.

Tel Aviv and Ma'ale Adumim - A 40-year-old father of four, Eliran Mizrahi, was sent to Gaza following the deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. According to his family, the Israeli military reservist returned a different person, traumatized by what he had suffered in the war War against Hamas had seen. Six months after his first deployment, he was at home battling post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Before he was to be deployed again, he took his own life.

The consequences of traumatization

"He came out of Gaza, but Gaza didn't come out of him. And he died afterward, because of the after-trauma," said his mother, Jenny Mizrahi. The Israeli military has said it is providing assistance to thousands of soldiers suffering from PTSD or mental illness caused by trauma during the war. It is unclear how many have taken their own lives as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has not released an official number.

The devastating effects of the conflict

A year after the war in Gaza, which, according to the Ministry of Health in the territory, killed more than 42,000 people, report United Nations that most of the dead are women and children. The war, which began after Hamas killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages, is already the longest the Jewish state has waged since its founding. Since the conflict is now on Lebanon expands, some soldiers say they fear being drafted into another conflict.

The psychological stress on soldiers

"Many of us are very afraid of being drafted into a war in Lebanon again," an IDF medic who served in Gaza for four months told CNN anonymously due to the sensitivity of the issue. “Many of us don’t trust the government right now.” The Israeli authorities have – with rare exceptions – Gaza closed to foreign journalists unless they are under IDF escort, making it difficult to know the full extent of the suffering of the Palestinians or to capture the experiences of soldiers. Israeli soldiers who fought in the enclave told CNN of horrors that the outside world can never truly comprehend. Their reports offer a rare glimpse into the brutality of what critics call Netanyahu “eternal war” and the intangible impact it has on the soldiers.

The Life and Death of Eliran Mizrahi

Mizrahi was deployed to Gaza on October 8 last year and was tasked with driving a D-9 bulldozer, a 62-ton armored vehicle that can withstand bullets and explosives. He was a civilian most of his life and worked as a manager in an Israeli construction company. After watching the massacres carried out by Hamas, he felt the urge to fight, Jenny told CNN.

The reservist spent 186 days in the enclave until he sustained a knee injury, followed by hearing loss in February when a rocket launcher (RPG) hit his vehicle, his family said. He was taken out of Gaza for treatment and diagnosed with PTSD in April while receiving weekly talk therapy. But his treatment didn't help.

“They didn’t know how to help them (the soldiers),” said Jenny, who lives in the Israeli settlement of Ma’ale Adumim in the occupied West Bank. "They (the soldiers) said the war was so different. They saw things that had never been seen in Israel." During his vacation, Mizrahi suffered from temper tantrums, sweating, insomnia and social isolation, his family said. He told his family that only those who were with him in Gaza could understand what he was going through.

The challenges of military service

“He always said no one would understand what I saw,” says his sister Shir. Jenny wondered if her son had killed someone and couldn't handle it. "He saw a lot of people die. Maybe he even killed someone. (But) we don't teach our children to do that," she said. “When he did that, it might have been a shock to him.”

Guy Zaken, Mizrahi's friend and fellow driver in the bulldozer, gave further insights into their experiences in Gaza. “We saw very, very, very difficult things,” Zaken told CNN. “Things that are difficult to accept.” The former soldier spoke publicly about the psychological trauma suffered by Israeli troops in Gaza. In one report Addressing the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in June, Zaken said that soldiers often had to "run over terrorists, dead and alive, in the hundreds."

The consequences for the civilian population

The IDF medic, who spoke to CNN anonymously, explained that moral dilemmas often arise when encountering civilians. There was a "very strong collective attitude" of distrust among Israeli soldiers towards the Palestinians in Gaza, particularly at the beginning of the war. The doctor added that there was a perception that Gazans, including civilians, "are bad, support Hamas, help Hamas and hide ammunition." In action, however, some of these attitudes changed “when you actually see Gazan civilians in front of your eyes.”

The IDF has said it is doing everything in its power to minimize civilian casualties in Gaza, including by sending text messages, phone calls and dropping evacuation flyers to warn civilians of attacks. Despite these measures, civilians in Gaza have repeatedly been killed in large numbers, even in areas that the military itself had designated as “safe zones.”

Mental health and support

The psychological impact in Gaza is likely to be enormous. Aid organizations and the UN have repeatedly highlighted the war's catastrophic psychological impact on Gaza's civilian population, many of whom were already traumatized by a 17-year blockade and multiple wars with Israel. A UN report in August noted that the Gazans' experiences challenge "traditional biomedical definitions" of PTSD "as there is no 'post-' in the Gazan context."

Difficulties after service

After Mizrahi took his own life, videos and photos emerged on social media showing the reservists demolishing homes and buildings in Gaza and posing in front of devastated structures. Some of the images allegedly posted on his now-removed social media appeared in a documentary for which he was interviewed in Israel on Channel 13. His sister Shir reported seeing many comments on social media accusing Mizrahi of being a "murderer," insulting him and responding with unpleasant emojis. “It was hard,” she said, adding that she did her best to ignore it. “I know he had a good heart.”

The loss of Eliran Mizrahi

Ahron Bregman, a political scientist at King's College London who served in the Israeli army for six years, including during the 1982 Lebanon War, said the Gaza war was unlike any other Israel has waged. “It’s very long,” he said, “and it’s urban, which means the soldiers are fighting among a lot of people, most of whom are civilians.” Bulldozer operators are among those most directly exposed to the brutality of war, Bregman explained.

“What they see are dead people and they clear them away along with the rubble,” he told CNN. “You walk over them.” For many, the transition from the battlefield to civilian life can be overwhelming, especially after urban fighting that results in the deaths of women and children, Bregman said.

The pressure of society

Despite suffering from PTSD, Mizrahi agreed to return to Gaza when he was drafted back in. He took his own life two days before his scheduled return. In her home, Jenny has created a room to commemorate her late son, with photos from his childhood and his time in construction. Among the items his mother kept was the cap Mizrahi was wearing when he took his own life, the bullet holes clearly visible.

Mizrahi's family began speaking out about his death after the IDF did not allow him a military funeral, saying he was not "on active reserve duty." They later reversed their decision. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that 10 soldiers took their own lives between October 7 and May 11, according to military data available to the newspaper.

Suicide rates and support systems

When asked by CNN about suicide rates in the IDF since the war, Uzi Bechor, a psychologist and commander of the IDF's Combat Response Unit, said medical departments are not allowed to release figures and the military sees the suicide rate as largely unchanged. “The suicide rate in the Army has been more or less stable over the last five or six years,” Bechor said, adding that it has actually fallen over the last decade.

Even if the number of suicides is higher, the ratio so far is "pretty much the same as last year because we have more soldiers," Bechor told CNN. He did not give CNN a number on suicide cases or their rates. “Every case is heartbreaking for us,” he said.

Nevertheless, more than a third of soldiers who have been withdrawn from deployment have psychological problems. In a statement in August, the Israel Defense Ministry's rehabilitation department said that more than 1,000 new wounded soldiers are withdrawn from combat every month, 35% of whom complain about their psychological state, with 27% developing a "psychological reaction or post-traumatic stress disorder."

Support in dealing with psychological challenges

In 2021, suicide was the leading cause of death among IDF soldiers, the reported Times of Israel citing military data that showed at least 11 soldiers had taken their own lives this year. Tried that earlier this year Ministry of Health, “to debunk rumors of rising suicide rates since October 7,” explaining that the reported cases were “isolated incidents in the media and on social media.”

Bregman, the Lebanon War veteran, said PTSD and other mental health issues are easier to address today than in the 1970s and 1980s, thanks to decreasing stigma. Nevertheless, the soldiers returning from Gaza will “carry their experiences with them for the rest of their lives.” The IDF medic reported that there is a mental health officer in each army unit during and after deployment. However, the impact of war remains, even among soldiers as young as 18 who suffered psychological trauma in Gaza, and they often cried or appeared emotionally numb.

Normalization of the unusual

Bechor, the IDF psychologist, explained that one of the ways the military helps traumatized troops get back to life is to try to "normalize" what they went through, in part by reminding them of the horrors committed on Oct. 7. "This situation is not normal for people," Bechor said, adding that when soldiers returned from the battlefield with PTSD symptoms, they asked themselves: "How do I get home after what I saw? How do I deal with my children after what I saw?"

For the tens of thousands of Israelis who went into battle voluntarily or through conscription, the war in Gaza was seen not just as an act of self-defense but as an existential struggle. This concept has been promoted by senior Israeli political and military leaders as well as Israel's international allies. Netanyahu referred to Hamas as “the new Nazis”, and US President Joe Biden said that the “old hatred of Jews” promoted by the Nazis “came to life” on October 7th.

Final thoughts

After the Hamas attacks, polls showed that most Israelis support the war in Gaza and do not want their government to stop the fighting, even as it negotiates the release of the kidnapped hostages. On the anniversary of the October 7 attack, a Opinion poll, published by the Israel Democracy Institute, found that only 6% of Israelis believe the war in Gaza should be stopped because of “the high loss of human life.”

Some soldiers, however, could not rationalize the horrors they had seen. When he returned from Gaza, Mizrahi often told his family that he felt "invisible blood" coming out of him, his mother said. Shir, his sister, blames the war for her brother's death. “Because of the army, because of this war, my brother is not here,” she said. "Maybe he didn't die from a bullet (in a fight) or an RPG, but he died from an invisible bullet," she added, speaking of his psychological pain.

What is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)?

PTSD is a mental illness caused by very stressful, frightening or distressing events, according to the United Kingdom's National Health Service. Someone with PTSD often relives the traumatic event through nightmares and flashbacks and may experience feelings of isolation, irritability, and guilt. PTSD can occur immediately after a stressful experience or occur weeks, months, or even years later.