Social media footage has shown soldiers from the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) throwing their psychiatric medications on the table of a parliamentary committee meeting, during its discussion on ways to combat the increasing suicide rate among the military, while shouting:
We are mentally ill, and our friends are committing suicide.
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(@wakeuppalestine)Israeli soldiers complain of psychological toll of heinously murdering Palestinians
Earlier this week, the Times of Israel also reported that of the 20,000 wounded soldiers which the occupation’s Defense Ministry’s Rehabilitation Department has treated since October 2023, more than half are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health conditions.
But it should come as no surprise that these soldiers are suffering from psychological issues. How can their minds be healthy when they blow children to pieces, shoot starving civilians who are looking for food, flatten entire neighbourhoods and destroy people’s homes – while they boast freely on the internet, knowing there will be no accountability for their war crimes?
These soldiers are responsible for a never-ending cycle of violence against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, and without them there would be no occupation, no genocide which was confirmed by the United Nations Commission yesterday.
Colonel Richard Kemp, head of the charity UK Friends of the Association for the Wellbeing of Israel’s Soldiers (UK-AWIS) – the UK branch of AWIS, an Israeli organisation managed by the Israel Defense Forces – has called the IDF “the world’s most moral army”. He described Israel as “a decent country with Western values, run on democratic principles” which “has never started a war” and said:
the IDF does more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.
Colonel Kemp is obviously deluded, as are the 76% of Israelis who either fully or partially agreed with the suggestion that:
there are no innocent people in Gaza.
A persistent pattern of violence for over 70 years
There has been a persistent pattern of violence throughout the history of the IDF, from its formation to the present day. Before 1948, there were three underground Zionist paramilitary groups – the Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi. These groups had contentious and often violent histories, and were regarded by many as terrorist organizations due to their use of bombings, assassinations, and attacks against both British authorities and the Palestinian population during the British Mandate period.
After Israel became a state, these three militias unified and formed the IDF, and their leaders formed Israel’s government, became politicians, ambassadors and prime ministers. Israel is now a militarised state, structured around its army.
Professor Haim Bresheeth is a filmmaker, photographer, Jewish activist, and author of An Army Like No Other: How the Israel Defense Forces Made a Nation. In his book, Bresheeth writes about the IDF and its central role in shaping Israeli society and the modern Israeli state.
According to Bresheeth, the IDF has become the most influential institution in Israel, impacting every aspect of civilian life and policy. He claims that an ethos of perpetual military readiness has made peace seem not only unachievable but even undesirable to much of Israeli society.
IDF soldiers traumatised? ‘Think of the trauma of the real victims’
Bresheeth told the Canary:
The prevalence of suicide and deep trauma amongst IDF soldiers, ones who do not even understand their problems as the result of the crimes they committed during the genocide in Gaza, is overwhelming. The anger and violence they use is not just evidence of their attitudes as IDF soldiers, but also of the deep trauma they are in. The soldiers who are NOT traumatised are even worse – they have no problem with murdering civilians in huge numbers.
The complainants are in the Knesset because their conditions are not treated by the system. If they themselves are traumatised, think of the trauma of the real victims – the Palestinians in Gaza – murdered, badly maimed, constantly under fire, starvation, lack of water, medicine, housing, hospitals, schools, universities – any modern facilities in this terrible killing field called Gaza! Call for an end of the genocide and an end of the Zionist state!”
Although official suicide data from the Israeli occupation forces are only published yearly, we know that five Israeli soldiers took their own lives in July 2025 alone, while in 2024, 21 soldiers died by suicide – the highest annual toll in over a decade, while in 2023, the figure stood at 17.
Featured image via the Canary
By Charlie Jaay
This post was originally published on Canary.