New Delhi, October 12 (IANS). Gaza has embarked on the path of peace. The world wants peace there. Among such positive news, a news came on Saturday, October 11, 2025. A young man who loved basketball, who used to laugh and smile, suddenly came the news of his death. The cause of sudden death was not natural but suicide. The name of this young man was Roi Shalev and he embraced death because he was unable to forget the tragedy of the Nova Musical Festival which had taken away the dearest companion of his life.
Roy’s close friend Mapala Adam lost her life in that attack by Hamas. I cried and was saved but the wounds in my heart never healed. Not only did she cry, but there were many who could not bear that accident and ended their lives. In 2024, a girl who survived that attack also committed suicide. Here also the reason was the pain which could not be healed. Shirel Galon committed suicide on her 22nd birthday.
What this means is that on the morning of October 7, 2023, Israel heard a scream which history will never forget. After the Hamas attack, another invisible war started amidst burning houses, families being held hostage, dead bodies and terrorist terror. This was not a war of bullets and gunpowder, but of wounds imprinted on the heart and mind. Thousands of people who survived physically were badly injured mentally and were pushed into a world where there is no sleep at night and no reason to live during the day.
Just weeks after the attack, a five-fold increase in cases of ‘PTSD’ i.e. ‘post-traumatic stress disorder’ was recorded in Israeli mental health centers. People calling the helpline numbers were no longer telling stories of their fear, but of their guilt. “I survived, but my children/partner did not”, this sentence has become the new national sentiment of Israel. People who lost their families ask again and again every day – Why am I alive? Psychology considers this to be the most terrible form of “Survivor Guilt”, where the person blames his own survival and not any external enemy.
The Israeli Health Ministry and mental health organizations revealed in early 2024 that new cases of PTSD increased by 500 percent within three months of the attacks. Most affected were the communities that lived in Kafr Aja, Bayeri and Nir Oz. These areas are adjacent to Gaza.
Research shows that one in four people with PTSD is on the verge of suicide. This situation is not new in Israel, but it has never been so widespread before. Many such cases came to light in the country going through Yom Kippur War of 1973, Lebanon War of 2006 and continuous terrorist incidents. Psychologists believe that it is not just war-induced stress, but generational trauma that will change the mental structure of children in the future.
The government opened ‘resilience centres’, arranged for therapy, sent a team of psychiatrists, but the problem persists. This is not just the story of Israel, thousands of families living in Gaza, on whom the same war rains death day and night, are struggling with this situation.
A WHO report shows that every second child in Gaza shows signs of severe mental trauma. That is, war has not captured the borders, but the human mind.
–IANS
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