Genocide | “I’m afraid of what they might order him to do in Gaza” – El Salto

The number of Israeli soldiers on the Gaza front is so small that their country’s media can name them. They even put their faces in photographs and add some details of their personal history, such as their city of origin or their journey within the Israeli army. On May 29, it was the case of Uri, Ido and Amir, three young soldiers between 20 and 21 years old killed in Rafah. They entered a building where explosives were stored that were about to explode and when the device exploded the building collapsed on them. Some Israeli sources suggest that the explosives may have been deliberately booby-trapped.

There are other deaths among the Zionist ranks that the Israeli media is not reporting with names, photos or personal stories. Since October 7, the day of the Hamas attack against southern Israel, at least 10 Jewish soldiers have committed suicide after failing to recover from what they did and saw on the war front. This data includes the Gaza Strip as well as the surrounding region, as some of the suicides occurred while fighting was still going on in the kibbutzim near the enclave.

Since October 7, at least 10 Israeli soldiers have committed suicide, unable to cope with what they did and saw on the war front.

An investigation by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, published on May 11, brought the issue to the fore as the serious psychological consequences among Israeli soldiers did not go beyond being taboo in the press in their country. A few weeks ago, in El Salto Diario we repeated some cases that suggested a moral breakdown among fighters recently deployed in the Gaza Strip. Such as the case of a 25-year-old Israeli soldier, diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after returning from the enclave, who opened fire on his friend in an apartment in Tel Aviv. Earlier, another soldier returning from Gaza opened fire on his fellow unit members after waking up in the middle of a nightmare.

Some of the suicides that have occurred since October surprise experts consulted by Haaretz, as they occurred while the fighting in southern Israel was still active. They indicate that the most common pattern is that the trauma appears after the war ends, leading to a sudden awakening amid images, lights and sounds.

“I am afraid of what I might see in the Gaza Strip.”

Even if he is protected by the best war equipment, a son always remains a son. The thousands of Israeli soldiers deployed in Gaza since October have left behind families who suffer for their safety and mothers who wish their children did not have to leave.

“I am confused and scared,” says Tali, a 50-year-old Israeli. They have gathered in a camp in front of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, in Jerusalem, demanding a ceasefire to free the hostages. The rally also calls for the resignation of the executive and is filled with posters with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s face, marked with a red cross. Tali denounces that the captives and soldiers are not at the center of Israeli leaders’ priorities. “As long as the hostages are in Gaza and I wake up every day with the news of another dead soldier in the Strip, I cannot live my life normally,” he told El Salto Diario.

He experiences the soldiers’ anxiety first-hand. Her son has just returned home after three-and-a-half months deployed as a reservist in Gaza. He will be called up again soon.’ “I don’t have the words to describe it,” she says, looking teary-eyed when asked what it’s like to have a son at the front, adding: “I fear for his life. And I fear what they will ask him to do. As far as I can see. And how all of this will affect him.”

Tali distrusts the Netanyahu government, which she wants to see out of power, and assures that her mission is to exert pressure so that when her son re-enters Gaza as a soldier, the executive that rules Israel is one in which he can see himself. More reflective: “I want a government that gives you orders and tells you what to do to be a government that makes the right decisions.” According to this mother, her son has returned from the Strip without saying much. “What happens there is really terrible. He is now trying to build his life again in Israel. My responsibility is to take care of him.”

According to the Israeli military, 291 Israeli soldiers have lost their lives in Gaza since the start of the ground offensive in the enclave. The military claims that more than 40 of these deaths were caused by friendly fire or accidents involving their own explosives. If those killed during the Hamas attack on October 7 are included, the number of casualties is higher than 638 uniformed personnel. Israeli combat reports include more than 500 seriously injured. Although the number of casualties is modest compared to the more than 45,000 deaths inflicted by Israeli soldiers in Gaza – if one adds the 10,000 missing under rubble – these are high figures by Israeli standards.

“It’s very difficult to understand what we are experiencing if you don’t live here,” said this Israeli woman in an interview prepared before the ground assault against Rafah. Israel has been trying to understand the region, so “we all have to find a way to do it, because I think so far we haven’t done it.” She says, for several months now, “everyone is very sensitive,” but she hopes that with the passage of time “something new can come.”

When the interview is over, Tally asks to add a few more statements. “I want to talk about the people of Gaza,” says the mother of an Israeli soldier: “I think outside Israel they think we don’t care about them. We care about them so much. But we are so shocked and scared, it’s as if none of this existed.” Israelis regret the suffering of children, women and the elderly in the Strip. However, they say that “many people from the enclave joined Hamas” – a dubious but widespread idea in Israel – and admit they don’t know what to do with this information. “We are still trying to rebuild our trust,” Tally laments: “Right now we are trying to save our lives and the lives of our country,” she declares, “and I think it’s understandable that this is our priority.”

“Amazing atmosphere” of Israeli soldiers in Gaza.

A few meters from the anti-government camp where Tali is protesting, there is a gathering with the opposite sign. The group that calls for it, The Mothers of the Soldiers, demands that the Israeli executive abandon the idea of ​​a ceasefire and put maximum pressure on Gaza. They are religious mothers who, although they express concern for their children stationed in the Strip, do not want the war to stop until “complete” victory. One of its leaders, Hannah Katan, participates in El Salto Diario. She is the mother of seven soldiers. “Our children are fighting in a war that we did not choose or start,” says Katan, a doctor by profession. “It is a war in which you see the difference between day and night, between justice and cruelty, between being a human being and being something else.”

“They must be forced to surrender with total suffocation. No food, no water, no medicine, no fuel. This is the most humane thing we can do.”

The soldiers’ mothers, who often meet government ministers to show support, reject the temporary ceasefire as a measure to save Israeli prisoners. They charge that it would give Hamas time to regroup and want Israel to execute the enemy so that Israeli leaders can negotiate a price for freeing the captives. “They must be forced to surrender with total suffocation. No food, no water, no medicine, no fuel. It’s the most humane thing we can do.”

Like all of Israel, Katan remembers that Yehya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza and one of the masterminds of the October 7 attack, was one of the Palestinian prisoners freed during an exchange with Israeli detainees in 2011. If a new agreement like this goes ahead, it will free many “terrorists.” “We all want the detainees to come back right now. You have to act with the heart as well as logic. These brutal terrorists don’t know what compassion means. We have to use our tools to make sure that the price for these detainees is extremely low because Hamas is surrendering. “If we go for a ceasefire, we will put more people at risk.”

Although the United States sponsors the Israeli invasion of Gaza and uses nothing more than political propaganda to distance itself from the barbarism it funds, there are those in Israel who see American power as a limiting factor. The soldiers’ mothers argue, “If your children were in Gaza, you would not help the enemy with fuel and supplies.” They line up in the other direction and “beg” the Israeli government to act firmly in Rafah.

Katan and his companions assure that they are going in peace. “We want the world to know that as a Jewish nation we want peace. We pray three times a day for peace. Shalom, which means peace, is the most important word we have in Hebrew. We did not ask for this war, but we have no choice but to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he says, referring to the Hamas attacks of October 7. Katan predicts that if Israel does not dismantle the Palestinian militias, similar attacks could spread “throughout the rest of the world.”

That they want peace does not mean they envision a future with or without Palestinians. When Katan was asked if she would ever see real coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians, she replied, “I don’t know,” adding, “We can talk about the other part of the world, but before that what I want is coexistence between Jews.” In this sense, this proud mother of seven Israeli soldiers celebrates “the good things that came from the war”: “We know what happened months before the war, when there were political issues that divided our population,” she says, referring to protests against the so-called judicial coup of the Netanyahu government: “But this war is making us stronger, more united and more Jewish.”

He connects this to what is happening inside the Gaza Strip. Unlike Talley’s son, who barely speaks a word when he returns home, Kattan assures that his soldier sons stationed in the Palestinian enclave are “very happy.” He says they come together “in a wonderful environment” and that they “debate their dreams among brothers” while “they feel they are doing important work.”

The medieval siege against Gaza led to dozens of deaths from hunger and countless more due to a lack of medicines and medical supplies. Even if they survived, the severe malnutrition of these months will leave thousands of boys and girls with psychological and physical problems for the rest of their lives. Asked if as a doctor she has any doubts about the consequences of the siege on the Gazan population, Kattan says categorically: “No,” she says, dismissing the question: “Our detainees are not receiving medical attention. That is the issue, nothing else.”