The Defense Ministry is currently grappling with a shortage of therapists for IDF combatants suffering from post-traumatic stress following the war in Gaza, the ministry told lawmakers on Monday.

Addressing the Knesset Health Committee, Ronit Sandrovich, the head of the ministry’s Social Services Responses Division, stated that there is only one caseworker available per 850 veterans suffering from PTSD.

“We owe our psychological casualties, the post-trauma victims. The State of Israel sent them into battle, or was responsible for them in moments of horror, and now it is our duty to stand by them in the rehabilitation process,” committee chairwoman Limor Son Har-Melech said, adding that her panel will “ensure that their rehabilitation is at the top of the healthcare system’s priorities.”

Some 58 percent of those treated at Defense Ministry rehabilitation centers since October 7 are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health conditions.

A report published by the Knesset Research and Information Center last October found that between January 2024 and July 2025, 279 Israel Defense Forces soldiers attempted to take their own lives.

According to the report, combat soldiers made up 78 percent of all suicide cases in Israel in 2024, a sharp rise from previous years: The rate hovered between 42% and 45% from 2017 to 2022, and stood at just 17% in 2023.

The Knesset report found that only 17% of the soldiers who died by suicide over the past two years had met with a mental health officer in the two months prior to their deaths.

Most recent suicides among........

© The Times of Israel