This article reports on Israel’s severe mental health crisis following the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas, which left nearly 1,200 people dead and many more traumatized. According to a State Comptroller report from February 2025, about 39% of Israelis—around 3 million people—are experiencing symptoms of post-traumatic stress, depression, or anxiety. Despite this crisis, the number of individuals receiving mental health treatment has only increased by 1%, highlighting the inadequacy of current support systems. The piece focuses on personal stories like those of Ronen Shalev and his family to illustrate the widespread impact of trauma and the struggle with accessing adequate care.
Written locally by qwen2.5:14b on 2026-10-05,
using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the
same event (that is the story summary below).
Warning: This article contains references to death by suicide that some readers may find disturbing.
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As October 7's third anniversary approaches, Ronen Shalev's body tells him something's coming.
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"You start shivering," he tells DW.
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"It's not just one day and you move on.
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We have many graves to visit, many families to meet.
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It's a difficult time and you feel it in your body."
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Both of his children attended the Nova Party in Israel's south, where almost 400 people were killed in a terrorist attack carried out by Palestinian militant group Hamas and its affiliates in Gaza.
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In total, roughly 1,200 people were killed in the attack and around 250 were taken hostage.
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The attack triggered the war in Gaza, during which Israel has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and displaced much of the territory's population.
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Shalev's son, Roee, was shot and hospitalized, but he survived.
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Roee's partner, Mapal Adam, was killed in front of his eyes.
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Shalev's daughter, Lior, also made it out.
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Shortly after that day, Shalev's wife Gavriela went missing, before her body was found in a burned car with a goodbye letter.
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"She couldn't handle the sorrow from that day," Shalev says.
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At the same time, his son Roee's post-traumatic symptoms started emerging, mostly in the form of extreme mood swings.
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"He went to treatment to please me, but he didn't really believe in it.
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He thought he was OK, that he was strong," Shalev remembers.
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Two years after Gavriela's death, Roee couldn't take it anymore, either.
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"I'm alive, but I'm dead within," Roee wrote in his goodbye message, which he posted on his Instagram account.
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A country in post-traumatic state
Since October 2023, Israel has been grappling with a mental health crisis of unprecedented scale.
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According to a report by Israel's State Comptroller from February 2025, some 39% of the Israeli public reported suffering from post-traumatic symptoms, depression, anxiety or a combination of the three, on a medium or severe level.
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This amounts to some 3 million people, 600,000 of whom could suffer severely.
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However, the report also found that the number of people receiving mental health treatment had only risen by 1% since October 7, 2023, a difference of around 60,000 people.
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Among the affected groups are survivors of the attack, as well as people evacuated from their homes in Israel's south and north due to the war.
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Noga Dagan-Buzaglo is a researcher with the Adva Center, a think tank focusing on inequality in Israeli society.
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She wrote an extensive paper about Israel's mental health system and its challenges post-October 7.
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She tells DW that while the country's mental health budget did increase due to the war, it was too little, too late, as the health system faced an ongoing crisis that was not handled properly.
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"The biggest challenge is convincing people to work in Israel's public mental health system, both due to lower wages in comparison to the private sector and due to an overload of work," she says.
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Sedatives often the go-to solution
The current situation affects mental health professionals, too.
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Research by the University of Haifa found that 84% of the therapists who treated people affected by the October 7 attack showed traumatic symptoms themselves, and some 45% of them said they feel mentally exhausted.
Israel's Health Ministry has repeatedly said it has increased funding and job openings for the country's public mental health system, but staffing shortages remain, especially in peripheral regions in the far north and south.
Because of these issues, the report said waiting times for treatment through Israel's public healthcare system were longer than six months.
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In some cases, Dagan-Buzaglo says, patients had to wait more than a year before receiving help.
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Mental health NGOs and volunteers try to fill the gaps, often struggling themselves under the workload.
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This also leads to an increased use of prescription medications.
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Some people turn to substances like alcohol and drugs.
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The Israeli Ministry of Health said earlier this year that it had registered a rise of between 13% and 17% in the prescription of sedatives, sleep aids and antidepressants.
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Those who suffer from the situation the most are the ones who cannot afford to pay a private therapist.
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Dagan-Buzaglo labels the Israeli public health system's response to the situation as "simply bad."
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Combat soldiers have received a special focus when it comes to Israel's mental health crisis.
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Statistics published by the Israeli parliament and the IDF suggest a sharp rise of suicide cases among reservists: from a maximum of one annual case in the six years preceding the war to 11 cases in 2024, as well as nine cases investigated as suspected suicides in 2025.
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This does not include ex-soldiers who committed suicide due to trauma after the end of their service.
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…and 12 more, not listed.
The Aporia
