New program addresses burnout and trauma among Israelis amid war

Despite a history of wars, Israel is for the first time actively investing resources in addressing burnout and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) trauma among both Israeli soldiers and civilians amid the ongoing war with Iran and its regional terrorist proxies. A whopping 3 million Israelis could potentially be suffering from various degrees of war-related trauma.

The Israeli military is cooperating with Momentum, an Israeli nonprofit organization, which has developed a new program that actively assists Israelis that have been negatively impacted by the war. The organization estimates that some 125,000 soldiers have served in the IDF since the Hamas Oct. 7 attack on southern Israeli Gaza borer communities in 2023.

Many soldiers have returned home from the battlefield with various traumas. Over 1,600 combat soldiers have reportedly already been involved in the Momentum program, which seeks to address and prevent PTSD. The program is designed to help returning soldiers move on from “survival mode” into a return to normal life. 

Avi Cirt, Momentum’s executive director, noted that the therapists and other professional staff have also been negatively affected by the war-related traumas they are trained to treat. 

“They each sit with many units, and they hear the hardest stories,” Cirt explained. “The staff members themselves start to take on some of the stress. … These are just terrible stories.”

Momentum is also cooperating with Teva, Israel’s largest pharmaceutical company – and the need for therapy is immense.

Yarden Abarbanel, the head of Teva’s Support the Soul Program, believes that as many as one in three Israelis could be in need of assistance, in varying degrees, for processing war-related traumas. This includes supporting the professionals who risk burn-out as a result of treating many traumatized individuals.

“We are supporting the therapists,” Abarbanel said. “We launched with the understanding that as a company that works in Israel, our roots are in Israel for more than 100 years – we had to do more for Israeli society after October 7."

“We understand that we have the expertise and knowledge in mental health, so we decided to focus a program on supporting and promoting trauma care and building greater resilience in Israeli society,” he explained. 

Some 1,300 professionals have already been enrolled in the Support the Soul program. 

Abarbanel emphasized that the widespread trauma in Israeli society requires professional cooperation between various organizations. 

“If you want to make a big impact, you have to do it together,” he added,

Psychiatry experts warned in January 2024 that the Oct. 7 attack triggered the worst mental trauma in modern Israeli history.  At the time Eli Cohen, CEO of the leading HMO, Clalit, noted a dramatic increase in demand for mental health related issues, especially in the areas most affected by the war in southern and northern Israel. 

"As Israel's largest HMO, serving over 50% of the country's population, most of those displaced by the situation in the north and south are our patients. Given the growing number of mental health inquiries, we are taking proactive and rapid measures. This initiative, supported by the best professional standards, will swiftly and effectively expand our response to the current and future challenges," Cohen said. 

Since most Israel’s soldiers are reservists, traumas from battle are transferred to Israeli civilian life. 

Edan Kleiman, head of the IDF's Disabled Veterans Organization, warned that as many as 20,000 IDF soldiers have sought treatment for various physical and mental wounds. 

“I have never seen a scope like this and an intensity like this, Kleiman said. “We must rehabilitate these people."