At a Ynet and Yedioth Ahronoth conference on post-trauma, held Monday in cooperation with the Histadrut, speakers on a panel about “Israeli society in an era of ongoing trauma” said the country is facing a national mental health crisis after three years of war, displacement, hostage trauma and reserve duty.
Prof. Bruria Adini of Tel Aviv University said Israelis were prepared for disaster in general, but not for October 7. She said this was the first time she felt unable to protect loved ones and that the state no longer provided the security she had taken for granted. Adv. Inbar Yehezkeli, who leads post-trauma rehabilitation work in the Yesh party, said, “There is a state in post-trauma,” and argued that the lack of one national authority is making recovery harder for evacuees, their children, hostage survivors and families, soldiers, and other affected groups.
Yehezkeli said she and her party have drafted a national post-trauma rehabilitation plan to create one central body where people can get all the help they need. She also said Israeli law leaves out some victims, citing Avner Marciano, father of slain captive observer Noa Marciano, who was exposed to Hamas psychological terror on his phone, saw her abduction alive, and later saw horrific videos after her death. Under current law, she said, he is not recognized as a terror victim because he was not physically present at the scene, and a simple amendment would change that.
Social worker Assaf Meshi, head of the national division in the Social Workers Union, said the Ministry of Rehabilitation is collapsing under the load, with each social worker handling about 850 cases. He said staff know they cannot do what the state assigned them to do, and that post-October 7, workers labored for months without pay. He called for real responsibility, more funding, and staffing, not “patchwork.” Adini added that the government tends to treat inconvenient data as political and talk only to supporters, even though effective policy must address the needs of all sectors.
The speakers said people aged 31 to 40 are especially vulnerable because they face uncertainty about their children, education, military service, and jobs. Yehezkeli said the recovery narrative should include state responsibility and a national commission of inquiry, while Adini said social cohesion has steadily weakened. She said trust can be rebuilt only through a plan built on three stages, hope, resilience and support.
