(Adnkronos) – Israel’s two-year war in Gaza against Palestinian Islamist group Hamas has led to numerous suicides among soldiers returning from the front and among the civilian population, while it has left hundreds of thousands of Israelis with post-traumatic stress disorder, a top expert has told Adnkronos Salute.
‘This has been a very long war for Israel, and what we know is that there are hundreds of thousands of people with PTSD,” said Udi Oren, clinical psychologist and physician, president of EMDR Israel.
“Those who did not receive the right help from psychologists experienced in treating extreme stress could not cope and took their own lives,” Oren said.
Israel’s relatively high suicide rate among soldiers returning from the front and among the civilian population “is no coincidence”, Oren stated.
“These include some of the hostages who returned home after many months and survived the (deadly Hamas-led) attack on 7 October 2023,” he said.
‘We know that the work done with the EMDR method in the past has been very intense, lasting months,” Oren recalled.
“EMDR aims to give people the chance to return to life. We are talking about an approach that has proven and confirmed its usefulness in the treatment of previously released Hamas hostages, and we are confident that we will achieve good results with the latest hostages released as well.”
EMDR is the well-known Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing psychotherapeutic approach, which is recognised by the World Health Organisation as the treatment of choice for PTSD – a mental health condition.
“The war has been a very long one for our country, and now Israel will have to deal with the consequences,” Oren warned.
