Name: Trauma and war-crime fears haunt Israeli soldiers | DW News
Uploaded: 2025-11-19T16:51:57.000Z
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Our next story includes references to suicide in Israel.

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The number of soldiers suffering from trauma and mental health issues after being deployed to Gaza is rising.

Senior international correspondent Funny Fishh has been speaking with a former soldier in Tel Aviv who says he's struggling to cope and that more transparency around suicide rates is needed.

Israeli military told DW their data is transparent, documented and and publicly available.

I don't like the sound of drones or loud noises or crowded places.

He often wakes up in the middle of the night, he says, out of worry for his comrades.

I think when this war ends, if it ended or not, it's hard to tell.

A massive wave of suicides that we are not ready to deal with.

This is the part that does keep me up at night in a way, because I have no way of knowing if any of my friends are going down that path.

When Gil was deployed to central Gaza at the start of the war in 2023 as a combat soldier, he found himself living with his comrades in homes of Palestinian families.

He says he and his fellow soldiers were unprepared for the war's relentless brutality.

There wasn't a road really where I could look at the road and know this is such and such street.

It was just bulldozed and bombed to an extent where you can't even look at the map.

And we would get the stench of death coming in every day around 6pm when the wind changed.

First a burning smell, burning plastic and then smell of rotten meat.

Gil took these photos in Gaza and claims he did not kill anyone, but

he had explicit orders to shoot to kill on site if anyone came within 300 meters.

He recalls detaining a Palestinian man later.

They told us we were supposed to shoot him and we told them back, well, he wasn't armed.

He believes incidents like this have led to a mental health crisis among soldiers.

Some soldiers say their experiences on duty push them across moral lines.

Others are struggling with the trauma of combat and losing comrades.

It is driving some to take their own lives.

Official figures show that nearly 300 soldiers attempted suicide in the 19 months to July this year.

Tully Flint, who works with soldiers returning from Gaza, is not surprised by the rise in suicide attempts.

He says many are grappling with profound moral injuries that weigh heavily on their conscience.

In moral injury, something that you did, that you or you were not able to prevent from happening or is against your values in such a way that your whole value system is shattered and repairing this is a lifelong journey.

Some soldiers believed they were defending Israel, only to later realize their actions may have been war crimes, leaving them haunted by guilt.

You know, committing crimes is not good to anyone.

But crimes of war, this shatters the soul.

And when you leave your reserve duty and you have a warrant for the next period in Gaza, in two months time, your brain, your nervous system, your soul cannot recover in between.

Many soldiers say they want to share their experiences to but feel unheard.

I think releasing data about suicide cases would go a long way to build trust because me and a lot of other people get the sense for years and years that the army is trying to not disclose the amount of suicide cases.

The Israeli army does not publish regular figures about suicides or suicide attempts.

They are often treated as a private matter.

Critics like Gil argue this would help others to be seen and heard and deal with their trauma.

Well, that report from DW's Fanny Fishh who joins us now from Jerusalem.

What appears to be different about this war in Gaza?

I think the most obvious here is really the death toll.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed during the past two years, most of them through Israeli military attacks.

And while we are speaking about at least 70,000 of people killed, and

this is an estimate here about direct consequences of the war, we haven't even spoken about the indirect consequences of any war.

And here in particular, this is the limited access to food, the limited access to health care and shelter, which also meant that the death toll overall has increased.

So we're talking about a huge death toll.

We're talking about the war that's been fought for at least two years because yes, there is a formal cease fire, which to some degree holds.

While Hamas militants and Israel both accuse each other of having allegedly violated the cease fire multiple times, it is also a massive ground operation that's been going on here that we can only probably compare to the 2014 Gaza war to some level.

And overall, it's probably the most controversial war ever that Israel has been waging because various human rights organizations and UN bodies have accused Israel of allegedly having committed war crimes.

In fact, just most recently in September, a UN backed commission report said that they concluded that Israel allegedly committed various acts of genocide that Israel, they point out the final conclusion, Israel allegedly has committed genocide, which Israel completely rejects because they say they've been rooting out Hamas militants and they're still doing that because as the cease fire to some degree holds nearly every day I receive an announcement by the IDF that apparently some people have crossed over that so called yellow line which separates Gaza right now in two parts.

It's very hard for us to verify any of this because we are not on the ground.

We are not allowed to report independently from Gaza.

And overall, going back again to the sheer number of people have been killed in this war, of course raises a lot of questions, especially the question of accountability and among soldiers, their responsibility in this war.

And so how is the IDF responding to these allegations?

We have reached out to the IDF specifically with the allegations that Gill, the soldier here in this report has made be it to with regard to the mental health support.

And the IDF said that they do see post traumatic disorder after being dispatched from active duty as a quote, legitimate injury and that they are providing enough support.

They're also saying that they are providing regular numbers.

For them, providing numbers every year is regular enough.

But a lot of critics are saying that these numbers especially because just the way I've been describing the difference of this war with regard to so many others, this war is so different that people who attempt to commit suicide, they feel more transparency.

But not only those who attempt to commit suicide, people with mental health problems in general who've been part of this war, it would help them so much more to cope with their so called moral injury if these numbers would be provided on a monthly basis, if there was even more talk about it, public debate about the so called moral reckoning.

Because what we have heard in this report by the Israeli soldier going on camera is still very rare.

There are multiple reports, especially anonymously in Israeli newspapers.

But this is just starting in fact, as the dust settles somewhat in Gaza.

And overall, when we asked them what about the allegations in particular shooting at civilians, shooting at Palestinians who are unarmed, they told us that the IDF prohibits intentional or deliberate shooting at civilians.

Well, there will be a lot of questions then asked obviously when once one can talk about really this war from being over because again I have to point at the sheer number of people killed and the accusations by various human rights organizations and UN bodies that a lot of these people have died specifically because they were killed intentionally and deliberately by Israeli military forces.

He's an expert in trauma and post traumatic stress disorder recovery therapy.

He's also a former former IDF reservist and joins us now from Ramat Gan in Israel.

Do you share Gil's fears of what he called a massive wave of suicide following this war?

I share Gil's fear of a massive wave of post traumatic soldiers that would need therapy.

And the suicide is the tip of the iceberg of the phenomena that PTSD carries with the problem will be violence, deteriorating, ability to cope in day to day life, students losing their academic careers and people losing their jobs and their ability to maintain relationships.

All these deprive people from their resources and then they might find themselves in a situation where they would go to suicide.

And we are not talking only about the soldiers, we're talking about a repel effect because a soldier has friends, families, spouses, children.

Is this what you would expect when troops and reservists come home from active service or is there something particular about this war?

This war is the longest one that we ever had and it's also the most controversial one.

Although the first Lebanon War was controversial, it ended up.

And then there was a time that the IDF stayed in Lebanon.

But this war, when a soldier goes to war believing that he is there in order to protect his country and to rescue the hostages and there are no more hostages already leaving hostages over there, and

the war and the horrors of war and the war crimes that were committed in unheard of amount of war crimes that people report when they come back, this is what will shatter their ability to maintain well being and to recover from war.

And of course you're talking about the testimony of people who have been there and lived through this where.

And they come back and say this where the Israeli government and the IDF of course deny that war crimes have been committed.

I'm not talking for the Israeli army or for the army.

It's interesting just listening to my clients.

But I wonder if that sort of adds to the problems that the soldiers then face.

Because, you know, they're saying one thing and the people who ordered them to do these things are saying completely something completely else.

You know, one of the things that someone who has been through trauma needs is someone from the superiors to take responsibility and to admit that things, bad things have happened.

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Trauma and war-crime fears haunt Israeli soldiers | DW News

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