Twenty-six months into Israel’s genocide in Gaza, a quieter breakdown is unfolding inside the Israeli army. More and more Israelis are beginning to grasp that something inside the military is cracking: a full-scale mental health collapse.
According to the Defence Ministry, more than 85,000 soldiers have sought psychological treatment since October 2023, the highest figure ever recorded in the country’s history.
The suicide data is now sitting at a 13-year high. Between January 2024 and July 2025, at least 279 soldiers attempted suicide, and dozens died.
Since the start of its genocide in October 2023, Israeli soldiers killed over 70,300 Palestinians, with most being women and children, and injured over 171,000 others, according to Gaza health authorities.
Just last week, a reserve officer from the Givati Brigade died by suicide after a “severe psychological distress.” Another soldier, only 21, told lawmakers that participating in the Gaza genocide had pushed him to the edge, and he is now “a walking corpse”.
To understand why such accounts have become more frequent, psychologists are increasingly turning to the concept of ‘moral injury’, which is the damage that happens when someone feels they have crossed a line they cannot uncross.
“Moral injury refers to the distress caused by exposure to morally and ethically questionable acts; in this case, genocide,” according to Psychologist Asude Beyza Savas.
“Studies on military service have found that stressful events, such as exposure to combat, play a significant role in suicide ideation among military members,” Savas tells TRT World.
“When we look more closely at guilt, we see that being exposed to potentially morally injurious events, especially those involving a transgression by oneself, is followed by prolonged feelings,” Savas says.
This results in withdrawal from society, and isolating oneself is a known factor for suicide, Savas adds.
During a recent parliamentary session at the Knesset, Israeli soldiers dumped piles of psychiatric medications, including opioids, on a table, saying, “We are mentally ill, and our friends are killing themselves.”
People online didn’t hold back. “Slaughtering innocence takes a toll on the human mind,” one X user wrote. Another added: “Yeah, bombing babies is bad for your health.”
Indeed, many Israeli soldiers entered Gaza certain of their role, but some are returning unable to live with what they saw or did. As the wife of another soldier who died by suicide puts it, “He was dead long before he died. His soul died in Gaza.”
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According to experts, the ‘moral injury’ that is causing suicide incidents among Israeli forces is slightly different from fear-based symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
The experts describe this as the guilt triggered the moment a soldier realises they participated in, enabled, or witnessed acts that clash with the values they believed they held before.
Instead of flashbacks or hypervigilance alone, moral injury shows up as profound shame, guilt and disgust with oneself. For many soldiers, that is exactly what Gaza represented.
When individuals feel they have crossed their own moral boundaries, they often experience deep cognitive conflict between seeing themselves as “good” and recognising their participation or complicity in harm, according to Dr Ayse Sena Sezgin, faculty member at Marmara University, Department of Psychology.
“In moral injury, certain cognitive and emotional mechanisms come into play, including cognitive dissonance, moral isolation, sleep disturbances, anxiety, addiction, suicidal ideation, loss of meaning, and existential upheaval,” Sezgin tells TRT World.
“After directly participating in violence, individuals may find themselves torn between attributing responsibility to those who gave the orders and taking responsibility themselves. This dilemma brings intense guilt along with shame and remorse, which makes seeking help more difficult,” she explains.
Savas says this collapse is the predictable psychological aftermath of taking part in atrocities. By participating in genocide and killing civilians, she explains, soldiers face both direct trauma and the secondhand trauma of witnessing the suffering of others.
“Trauma affects their current psychological state and is shown to predict prolonged stress levels, later PTSD symptoms, and damaged self-perception shaped by guilt and moral injury.”
This pattern mirrors what soldiers on the ground have admitted. Many describe moments that shattered their sense of self. One soldier recounted entering a destroyed home and seeing the bodies of two children: