3MLN ISRAELIS SUFFERING FROM TRAUMA SINCE OCTOBER 2023: REPORT

Sun 16 February 2025:

A new report revealed that approximately three million Israeli settlers had experienced anxiety, depression and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the aftermath of a military operation by Palestinian resistance groups on October 7, 2023, and subsequent genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.

The report, compiled by Israeli comptroller Matanyahu Engelman, stated that the Israeli mental health system, which had difficulty functioning even before the historic event, collapsed in the first days of the Hamas-led military operation.

It noted that in the six months following the surprise and large-scale attack, only about 0.6 percent of the population received mental health treatment through health management organizations (HMOs) and resilience centers, even though 38% of the population reported moderate to severe symptoms.

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“I warned about the failures in the field of mental health care in a letter to the prime minister about a month after the operation,” Engelman wrote, “but all the deficiencies have yet to be fully corrected.”

According to the findings of the report, an estimated 580,000 Israeli settlers suffer from at least one symptom of PTSD at a severe level as a direct consequence of the incidents of October 2023 and their aftermath.

Engelman said he presented his first findings to prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on November 13, 2023, after visiting conflict zones in the Southern and Northern flanks of the occupied lands.

He took a swipe at Israeli Health Minister Uriel Buso and ministry Director-General Moshe Bar Siman-Tov for not updating the mental health system’s preparations, despite an emergency management authority assessment that was first published in 2001.

Of the comptroller’s sample of 1,010 adults, one-third of the participants reported moderate or severe post-traumatic stress disorder or depression symptoms. About one-fifth reported anxiety symptoms.

The survey predicts that approximately 900,000 people will seek help for mental health issues in the future.

Engelman added that because of a shortage of manpower, the treatment offered by the HMOs and resilience centers is not sufficient to meet demand.

Israel unleashed the war on the besieged enclave, after Hamas and other Gaza-based Palestinian resistance movements carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Flood against the Zionist regime in response to its decades-long campaign of oppression against Palestinians.

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed a confirmed nearly 48,200 people and injured 111,640, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry. The Government Media Office has updated the death toll to at least 61,700 people, saying thousands who were missing under the rubble are now presumed dead.

The military campaign has turned much of the enclave of 2.3 million people into ruins, leaving most civilians homeless and at risk of famine.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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