Afrasianet - Hussein Tayseer Hamiyeh - What the Israeli entity is facing today is not just a security or strategic crisis, but a collective psychological crisis that may threaten its existence from within. 

Since the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Flood War, which has entered its 22nd month with no end horizon, the seeds of the phenomenon of the societal psychological crisis inside Israel have been unfolding day after day, according to official Israeli and media reports, especially among the army soldiers, who are no longer only victims of ambushes or explosive devices for a war that has become the critics of a war that has become unclear in horizon and outcome, but also prisoners of serious psychological disorders that erupted in the wake of the continued announcements of "permission to publish" and the number of dead and wounded in the The Gaza Strip, in addition to the moral dilemmas and violations on the ground that pushed many of them to the brink of collapse, and even beyond.

Trauma Speaks: From the Front to the Clinic

The mothers' testimonies, such as the story of the soldier's mother, who described her home as an "emotional minefield," convey invisible suffering, but devour young souls who are suffering under the burden of the ongoing war.

It tells stories of those traumatized by war, where soldiers do not return as they were, but return from service with broken and exhausted souls. This internal explosion is evident in official data: more than 3,769 soldiers have been recognized by the army as suffering from PTSD since the war began, and more than 10,000 others are facing a psychological crisis, while it is estimated that the number will increase in the near future to about 50,000 people, the majority of whom are due to the ongoing war in Gaza, and that half of them are injured.

The Israeli army, which is expected to suffer by 2028, will suffer permanent psychological disabilities, which will raise the number of registered wounded and disabled people recognized by the Rehabilitation Division of the Israeli Ministry of Defense to at least 100,000 disabled, and these figures, according to reports, are only the tip of the iceberg that is escalating.

What is more dangerous than the data is what the psychological phenomena themselves reveal. Post-traumatic stress disorder, which manifests itself in the continuation of living in the vortex of a traumatic event, the most important symptoms of which are manifested in constant insomnia, tantrums, social avoidance, detachment from reality, nightmares and an accompanying mood disorder, these data do not indicate just transient psychological damage, but rather the beginning of a deep collapse in the moral structure of Israeli society. When the injured person is a combat soldier, the disorder becomes a direct threat to the army's ability to fight. toughness and psychological resilience" that the Israeli military establishment has long boasted about. 

The exhausted "army": the collapse of "psychological toughness" as a national security crisis

Terms such as "psychological resilience" and "resilience" no longer apply to those suffering from nightmares of war and fighting, the screams of the wounded, and the images of their dead soldiers. Many IDF soldiers have crossed what is known in psychology as the "threshold of a psychological explosion," the moment when the body and mind can no longer tolerate it. Flight from fighting, refusal to carry out orders, and high suicide rates become phenomena that go beyond individual case descriptions, but rather become indicators of a shaky resilience internal affairs of the military system.

The refusal to serve is no longer limited to "leftist" groups or opposition to the policies of the government and its president, but has become a defensive behavior used by ordinary soldiers exhausted by war. The soldiers from the elite 933rd Brigade who refused to carry out the order to enter the fighting in the Gaza Strip and were sent to prison, the soldier who committed suicide after months of working in the body identification unit, and the increase in suicides all reveal the state of psychological rift that hits the army. When killing becomes a "daily routine," moral standards lose their meaning, and the soldier becomes a fragile creature looking for a way out—sometimes through rebellion, sometimes through death.

The Higher Silence: The Officers' Brotherhood and the Collapsed Masculinity Club

In this scene, the "silence of the leaders" stands out as a systematic silence that cannot be separated from the system. Yossi Melman, a specialist in security and military affairs, described the silence of the generals as the "silence of the sheep," motivated by tangled interests within a closed club of officers. Silence is not only moral, but it is silence over a psychological tragedy that is rampant in the military establishment, according to him, from the top of the pyramid to the lowest of the soldiers. Soldiers talk about officers who prevent them from complaining or even talking to their families, and threaten them with imprisonment if they show it I have been shaking. It is a double oppression: oppression of the enemy and oppression of the soul.

Suicide: When all defenses fail

Suicide is the ultimate catastrophe. Since the beginning of 2025, hundreds of soldiers have been declared to have reached extreme situations that required forced admission to psychiatric hospitals, while 17 suicides have been reported since the beginning of 2025, not including reservists – an unprecedented number in the history of Israeli wars. According to psychologists, this number is expected to rise further after the end of the war, when late symptoms begin to appear.

These suicides are not only combatants, but also They also include soldiers in support units, such as the Body Identification Unit, suggesting that  the "line of fire" no longer separates soldiers at risk from others.

Everyone is involved in the front, even those who don't shoot.

Funding for Treatment: A Psychological Bribe to Make Up for Failure

In the face of this collapse, the Israeli military has opted for the option of "money instead of treatment." Triple reserve salaries by nearly $8,000 on average. Paying salaries equivalent to those of high-tech employees to exhausted soldiers is not a psychological solution, but rather a new addiction to denial and artificial pacification. Compensating soldiers financially to keep them on a morally worn out front only means injecting more fuel into the fire of mass collapse.

Towards a collective psychological collapse?

What the Israeli entity is facing today is not just a security or strategic crisis, but a collective psychological crisis that may threaten its existence from within. The erosion of the home front, the explosion of psychological disorders among soldiers and civilians, and the prevalence of suicide are all signs that the war, as it prolongs militarily, will cause a further decline in the motivation to fight and a decline in the morale of the soldiers, and thus further decline in the army's readiness to continue the war and harm the achievement of its declared goals.

"No Truce for the Soul" is not just a passing metaphor from the Israeli psychiatrist Yarden Levinsky, but rather an accurate description of a collective state of psychological exhaustion, behind which hides an army that is gradually losing its ability to endure, and within which the pillars of "psychological readiness" and "combat readiness" collapse, in light of a war that has not even left many of them with the dream of returning. Except in coffins or with permanent physical and psychological disabilities and wounds.