Why Are Israeli Soldiers Committing Suicide?

The number of Israeli soldier committing suicide after serving in Gaza is going up at alarming rates. Just last Thursday a soldier soldier took a gun to his head and fired point-blank.

The incident was at the Sde Teiman military base in southern Israel. The soldier had just returned from fighting in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli daily Haaretz reported that the soldier was a member of the notorious Golani Brigade that has been fighting in Gaza soon after 7 October, 2023 and who was being questioned by the Israeli military police for bloody incidents carried out in Gaza.

He had come to the military base for a rest from the fighting but soon found out the military police were waiting for him according to Haaretz.

Its rare to investigate soldiers committing atrocities in Gaza but a probe was opened against him a month ago where it was reported that his commanders decided to confiscate his weapon.

On the night of the incident shooting he slowly took the gun of his friend who was his asleep and pulled the trigger on himself.

Its understood, he was suffering from a sever psychological depression since his close friend was killed in a bomb explosion in Gaza last month.

The number of Israeli soldiers committing suicide have shot up since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.

On Sunday, a reserve soldier killed himself in a forest near the northern city of Safed due to psychological problems from the Gaza war.

About 21 soldiers took away their lives in 2024 according the Israel Hayom newspaper. This is while Haaretz said that 42 soldiers committed suicide since the start of the Israeli genocide.

Last week another Israeli soldier took away his life just after celebrating his 24th birthday having served in the wars on Gaza and Lebanon.

“He told me he saw horrors. He couldn’t stand the pain anymore,” the mother of soldier Daniel Edri told Walla News.

“He told me that he saw horrors, and said to me: Mom, I smell the smell of the bodies and I see the bodies all the time,” his mother recalled. He was discharged from the army five months ago and was involved in transporting the bodies of dead Israeli soldiers.

His life stopped after he set himself on fire inside his car outside an Israeli settlement near the Palestinian town of Safad, pointing out that he was mentally disturbed.

Many have long reported that there is a clear mental health crisis in the Israeli army with the highest toll in 13 years of soldiers taking away their lives

CrossFireArabia

CrossFireArabia

Dr. Marwan Asmar holds a PhD from Leeds University and is a freelance writer specializing on the Middle East. He has worked as a journalist since the early 1990s in Jordan and the Gulf countries, and been widely published, including at Albawaba, Gulf News, Al Ghad, World Press Review and others.

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