Israeli minister warns of worst-ever mental health crisis amid Gaza war

“We are experiencing the largest mental health event the state has known since its establishment. A crisis that requires us, as a state and a society, to change perceptions and upgrade the public mental health system once and for all to meet the challenges posed by the war and the future,” he said at the Enosh Mental Health 2024 Conference in Tel Aviv.

Buso added that ministry assistance to the HMOs to treat mental health issues will double to about 600 million shekels in 2025.

“It is very important to focus on actions that create resilience,” he continued.

The ministry has taken “several significant steps to make the system less deficit-ridden and more stable, with financial certainty and the ability to invest wherever needed”, the minister noted.

“Since October 7, we have increased the capacity of resilience centers at a cost of tens of millions of shekels,” he said, adding, “Thousands of Israelis have been treated to date.”

He said the ministry has integrated new technologies, expanded mental health crisis teams, and trained mental health support professionals.

“Today, mental health is the most important issue in the healthcare system,” adds Moshe Bar Siman-Tov, Health Ministry director general.

In early March, the army announced around 30,000 Israeli soldiers have called up a mental health hotline since the outbreak of the war in the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7.

A military statement said that around 85% of the soldiers who sought psychological treatment had returned to active duty.

“Around 200 soldiers were discharged from the army due to the psychological problems they suffered” from the war, it added.

The Israeli army’s Medical Corps plans to inaugurate a new mental health center for soldiers, amid fears of troops developing post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the Gaza war.

The new mental health center will include a clinic to treat PTSD among troops, the army noted.

Back in February, Yekhiel Levechitz, the head of the army’s clinical department for mental illnesses, stated around 3,000 soldiers had been examined by mental health experts since Oct. 7.

The ongoing war unleashed trauma across the occupied territories, with the death toll, as well as the issue of Israeli captives and the displacement of tens of thousands of Israelis of affecting the entire Zionist entity.