Months after returning from the frontline in Gaza, Israeli army captain Israel Ben Shitrit says he is still haunted by the ghosts of the war he left behind.
“The scream of the soldier asking for rescue… no matter where I am, I will always hear that scream,” he told AFP, speaking of a comrade he had been unable to save.
Ben Shitrit was himself seriously wounded in combat in early 2024.
His testimony comes as Israel faces a wave of suicides among troops suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the wake of several conflicts.
And no war since the modern state of Israel’s creation in 1948 has mobilised as many soldiers or lasted as long as the one triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack.
The reserve officer told AFP there were many triggers that could spark disturbing flashbacks to his time in Gaza.
“When I hear a helicopter, it takes me back to Khan Yunis,” he said, referring to the city in southern Gaza that was the scene of intense fighting.
A fragile US-brokered ceasefire has offered a glimmer of hope for an end to hostilities more than two years after Hamas’s attack on Israel sparked the war.
– ‘Invisible wound’ –
An Israeli army report from July 2025 noted 9,000 requests for recognition of “psychological suffering” submitted to military health services since the latest Gaza war began.
The 2014 Gaza conflict, which was also against Hamas but lasted less than two months, saw the Israeli military recognise 159 soldiers suffering from psychological trauma.
Tuly Flint, a clinical social worker who specialises in PTSD derived from military combat, said the consequences of such trauma were wide-ranging.
“People talk about the suicide rate, but that’s the tip of the iceberg,” he told AFP between appointments with returned soldiers.
“We see violence, domestic violence. We see people split apart, couples split,” he explained. “We see many people collapse.”
For Tom Wasserstein, whose organisation sets up care centres for traumatised soldiers, the issue is a deeply personal one.
His younger brother Roi died from suicide at the age of 24 in July after more than 300 days of reserve duty as a military nurse in Gaza.
The tragedy fuelled Wasserstein’s determination to help.
“If one soldier dies from his wounds in combat, and another takes his own life because of what he has experienced, it means they have both been wounded,” Wasserstein said.
“One by a bullet, the other in his head — but it is still a wound. It is… an invisible wound… and it deserves to be treated,” he added, explaining that his brother never spoke about his experiences on the battlefield.
On the Israeli side, the October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official data.
Israel’s response caused more than 68,200 deaths, mostly civilians, according to the Gaza health ministry, which is under Hamas authority.
According to the Israeli army, 478 soldiers have been killed in the Gaza campaign since the beginning of the ground offensive at the end of October 2023.
– ‘Injury to the soul’ –
Soldiers suffering from PTSD have been camped out for several weeks outside the Israeli parliament to protest the lack of recognition of their trauma and demand an end to red tape around mental healthcare.
Among those in the tent was veteran Micha Katz, who said 60 soldiers had died by suicide in recent months.
Asked by AFP about suicide rates within its ranks, the Israeli military did not provide any statistics.
Members of the nascent movement of traumatised soldiers have been invited to testify before the parliamentary defence committee to present their grievances.
One of them is Yoann Dobensky, who said: “It’s not that we want to kill ourselves. It’s that we are tired of living after seeing the horrors of war”.
“Post-traumatic stress disorder must be recognised as an injury, just like a physical injury. It’s no less serious than a physical injury, it’s an injury to the soul,” the veteran said.
More than a year after being injured, army captain Shitrit said he was still being treated by doctors.
Beyond his physical wounds, he told AFP he was also suffering from PTSD.
“When someone is wounded, it also impacts those around them — their family, their children. Our children see everything, feel everything,” he said.
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