Israel is grappling with a dramatic increase in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and suicide among its troops after its two-year assault on Gaza, precipitated by the October 7 2023 Hamas attack on southern Israel.
Recent reports by the defence ministry and health providers have detailed the military’s mental health crisis, which comes as fighting persists in Gaza and Lebanon and as tensions flare with Iran.
The Gaza war quickly expanded with cross-border fire between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah and saw hundreds of thousands of soldiers and reservists deployed across the two fronts in some of the heaviest fighting in the country’s history.
Israeli forces have killed more than 71,000 Palestinians in Gaza and 4,400 in southern Lebanon, according to Gazan and Lebanese officials, and Israel said more than 1,100 service members have been killed since October 7 2023.
The war has left much of Gaza destroyed, and its 2-million people overwhelmingly lack proper shelter, food and access to medical and health services.
Palestinian mental health specialists have said Gazans are suffering “a volcano” of psychological trauma, with large numbers seeking treatment, and children suffering symptoms such as night terrors and an inability to focus.
Israeli studies show the war has taken its toll on the mental health of soldiers carrying out Israel’s stated war aims of eliminating Hamas in Gaza, retrieving hostages there and disarming Hezbollah.
Some soldiers who came under attack when their military bases were invaded by Hamas on October 7 are also struggling.
Israel’s defence ministry said it has recorded a nearly 40% increase in PTSD cases among its soldiers since September 2023 and predicted the figure will increase by 180% by 2028. Of the 22,300 troops and personnel being treated for war wounds, 60% suffer from post-trauma, the ministry said.
It has expanded the health care provided to those dealing with mental health issues, expanded the budget, and said there was an increase of about 50% in the use of alternative treatments.
The country’s second-largest healthcare provider, Maccabi, said in its 2025 annual report that 39% of Israeli military personnel under its treatment had sought mental health support, while 26% had voiced concerns about depression.
Several Israeli organisations, including the NGO HaGal Sheli, which uses surfing as a therapy technique, have taken on hundreds of soldiers and reservists suffering from PTSD. Some former soldiers have therapy dogs.
Ronen Sidi, a clinical psychologist who directs combat veteran research at Emek Medical Centre in northern Israel, said soldiers were generally grappling with two different sources of trauma.
One source was related to “deep experiences of fear” and “being afraid to die” while deployed in Gaza and Lebanon and while at home in Israel. Many witnessed the Hamas assault on southern Israel, in which the militants also took about 250 hostages back into Gaza, and its aftermath firsthand.
Sidi said the second source is from moral injury, or the damage done to a person’s conscience or moral compass from something they did.
“A lot of [soldiers’] split-second decisions are good decisions,” which they take under fire, “but some are not, and women and children are injured and killed by accident, and living with the feeling that you have killed innocent people is a very difficult feeling, and you can’t correct what you have done,” he said.
One reservist, Paul, a 28-year-old father of three, said he had to leave his job as a project manager with a global firm because “the whistles of the bullets” above his head lingered with him after returning home.
Paul, who declined to give his last name over privacy concerns, said he deployed in combat roles in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. Though fighting has abated in recent months, he said he lives in a constant state of alert.
“I live that way every day,” Paul said.
A soldier seeking state support for their mental health must appear before a defence ministry assessment committee which determines the severity of their case and grants them official recognition. That process can take months and can deter soldiers from seeking help, some trauma professionals said.
Israel’s defence ministry said it provides some immediate help to soldiers once they start the evaluation process and has increased this effort since the war began.
An Israeli parliamentary committee found in October 279 soldiers had attempted suicide from January 2024 to July 2025, a sharp increase from previous years. The report found combat soldiers comprised 78% of all suicide cases in Israel in 2024.
The risk of suicide or self-harm increases if trauma is untreated, said Sidi, the clinical psychologist.
“After October 7 and the war, mental health institutions in Israel are overwhelmed completely, and a lot of people can’t get therapy or don’t understand the distress they are feeling has to do with what they have experienced.”
For soldiers, the chance of seeing combat remains high. Israel’s military remains deployed in more than half of Gaza, and fighting has persisted there despite a US-backed truce in October, with more than 440 Palestinians and three Israeli soldiers killed.
Its troops continue to occupy parts of southern Lebanon as the Lebanese army presses on with disarming Hezbollah under a separate US-brokered deal. In Syria, Israeli troops have occupied an expanded section of the country’s south since the ouster of former leader Bashar al-Assad.
As tensions flare with Iran and the US threatens to intervene, Israel could also find itself in another violent confrontation with Tehran after last June’s 12-day war.
Reuters
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