10/22/2024–|Last updated: 10/22/202411:25 PM (Mecca time)
Israeli military reserve soldier Eliran Mizrahi (40 years old), a father of four children, went to Gaza after the Al-Aqsa flood, and returned a different person, after suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder due to what he witnessed of the war in the Gaza Strip, and then this led him to commit suicide two days before Returning to Gaza again.
With this news, CNN correspondents Nadine Ibrahim and Mike Schwartz began their report on the network’s website, in which they said that Mizrahi “left Gaza, but Gaza did not leave him.” His mother, Jenny Mizrahi, said: “He died after that, due to post-traumatic stress.”
The Israeli military, according to the report, says it cares for thousands of soldiers who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder or mental illness resulting from trauma during war. It is unclear how many people have been killed because the Israeli army has not provided an official figure in this longest war in Israel’s history, and with it now expanding into Lebanon, some soldiers say they fear being conscripted into another conflict.
Afraid of conscription
An Israeli army medic, who served four months in Gaza, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said: “Many of us are very afraid of being conscripted again for the war in Lebanon. Many of us do not trust the government at the moment.”
Israeli soldiers who fought in the enclave told CNN they witnessed atrocities that the outside world cannot truly understand. Their accounts offer a rare glimpse into the brutality of what critics have called “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s forever war,” and the intangible toll it takes on the soldiers involved.
Interviews with Israeli soldiers, a doctor, and the Mizrahi family provide a window into the psychological toll that war places on Israeli society.
In Gaza, Mizrahi was assigned to drive a D-9 bulldozer, a 62-ton armored vehicle that can withstand bullets and explosives. He was a civilian most of his life, working as a manager in an Israeli construction company. He spent 186 days in the Strip until he suffered knee injuries, followed by hearing damage in February when a rocket-propelled grenade hit his car. He was withdrawn from Gaza to receive treatment.
Last April, he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and received weekly talk therapy. But his treatment did not help.
They saw what they had never seen in their lives
“They didn’t know how to treat them,” says his mother, who lives in the Maale Adumim settlement in the occupied West Bank. “This war was very different. They saw things they had never seen before in their lives.”
When Mizrahi was on vacation, he suffered from temper tantrums, sweating, insomnia and social withdrawal. He told his family that only those who were with him in Gaza could understand what he was going through. “He always said, ‘No one will understand what I saw,'” his sister said.
Mizrahi also told his family that he often felt “invisible blood” coming out of him, his mother said.
His mother wondered if her son had killed someone and couldn’t deal with it. “He saw a lot of people die. He might have even killed someone. But we don’t teach our children to do things like that. So, when he did something like that, it was probably a shock to him.”
Guy Zaken, Mizrahi’s friend and co-pilot of the bulldozer, provided further insight into their experience in Gaza. “We have seen very difficult things. Things that are difficult to accept,” he said.
“It all comes out”
Zaken, a former soldier, spoke publicly about the psychological trauma suffered by Israeli forces in Gaza. In his testimony before the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, he said that on many occasions, soldiers had to “run over Palestinians, living and dead, by the hundreds,” adding, “Everything comes out,” referring to the tearing and disintegration of Palestinian bodies.
Zakin says he can no longer eat meat, because it reminds him of the horrific scenes he witnessed from his bulldozer in Gaza, and he struggles to sleep at night, with the sound of explosions ringing in his head.
“When you see a lot of meat outside, theirs and ours,” he said, referring to the corpses, “it affects you, for sure, when you eat.”
The mental health toll in Gaza is likely to be enormous. Aid groups and the United Nations have repeatedly highlighted the disastrous mental health consequences of the war on civilians in the Strip, many of whom have already suffered from a 17-year blockade and several wars with Israel. In a report issued in August, the United Nations said that the experiences of Gazans “challenge traditional biomedical definitions of PTSD given the lack of ‘function’ in the context of Gaza.”
After Mizrahi committed suicide, videos and photos appeared on social media of the reservist bulldozing homes and buildings in Gaza and standing in front of destroyed buildings. Some of the photos, allegedly posted on his now-removed social media accounts, appeared in a documentary that included an interview with him on Israel’s Channel 13.
Sweeping bodies together with rubble
The Gaza war is unlike any other war Israel has fought, says Aaron Bregman, a political scientist at King’s College London who served in the Israeli army for six years, including during the 1982 Lebanon War.
“It’s very long, and it’s urban, which means the soldiers are fighting among many people, the vast majority of whom are civilians,” he said. “The bulldozer operators are among those who are directly exposed to the brutality of war. What they see are the dead, shoveling their bodies along with the rubble, crushing them with their bulldozers.” “.
Bregman added that for many, the transition from the battlefield to civilian life can be overwhelming, especially after urban warfare involving the deaths of women and children. “How can you put your children to bed after you see children being killed in Gaza?”
Despite Mizrahi’s PTSD, his family said he agreed to return to Gaza when he was called back. But two days before he was supposed to go, he killed himself.
No numbers are allowed
Regarding the number of suicides in the Israeli army since the war, the CNN report said that the medical corps is not allowed to provide numbers.
However, it turns out that more than a third of those removed from combat suffer from mental health problems. In a statement issued in August, the Israeli Defense Ministry’s Rehabilitation Division said that each month, more than 1,000 newly wounded soldiers were taken out of combat for treatment, 35% of whom complained of mental conditions, and 27% had a “mental or mental reaction.” Post-traumatic stress disorder.
She added that by the end of the year, 14,000 wounded fighters are likely to be admitted for treatment, and about 40% of them are expected to face mental health problems.
The report stated that more than 500 people die due to suicide in Israel and more than 6,000 people attempt suicide every year, according to the Israeli Ministry of Health, which notes that “there is an underreporting of about 23% in the numbers mentioned.”
He continued that in 2021, suicide was the leading cause of death among Israeli army soldiers.
