A comprehensive reform to address the large spike in wounded and traumatized soldiers from the last three years of war was approved by the government on Thursday.
The reform is based on the June 7 recommendations of a government committee that recommended radical changes for how the Defense and Finance ministries should handle an estimated 50,000 trauma cases of former soldiers.
The committee, which is headed by Prof. Shlomo Mor-Yosef, started operating last November.
According to Mor-Yosef, the committee should have been established at least a year earlier to deal with the skyrocketing numbers of physically wounded and emotionally traumatized, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) cases, from the ongoing wars since October 2023.
This past March, the Defense Ministry estimated the total number of wounded soldiers in Israel’s wars would exceed 100,000 by around 2030, as the war has continued and the number of wounded soldiers in Lebanon has jumped. The new estimate for crossing that threshold has been moved forward to 2028.
Although the Defense Ministry had already made many changes to streamline approving financial benefits and emotional treatment for soldiers since the October 7 massacre in 2023, the changes were nowhere near sufficient, the committee said.
Committee recommends establishing new authority to handle treatment for soldiers
Instead, the committee said the ministry must establish a new, almost completely independent authority to handle the issue.
According to Mor-Yosef, the ministry, with around 25 subdivisions, cannot be counted on to move fast enough in handling the issue.
But making this new authority independent, with its own budget, computer services, new resources, and authority to act without too many layers of still existing red tape, would improve the situation, he said.
While the budget allocated to this issue had already jumped from around NIS 5 billion to NIS 10b. from 2023-2026, another NIS 2b. per year is probably necessary, along with a one-time investment of more than NIS 500 million in establishing the new authority, the committee said.
Many of the changes recommended by the committee require new legal steps.
Given the upcoming election and the low likelihood that the Knesset can act fast enough on some of these thorny issues, Mor-Yosef recommended that the current government immediately pass new regulations to authorize the changes on a more rapid basis. That is how the situation eventually played out.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the government had approved “an unparalleled important national program for wounded soldiers and security forces – the male and female heroes who fought for the existence and the security of the State of Israel… the program will remove red tape, shorten waiting periods, widen responses and ensure that each person will be able to rapidly maximize their rights and receive all the aid allotted to them.”
Defense Minister Israel Katz said the country must “be there for each male and female soldier who is wounded physically or emotionally, and not only on the day in which they are harmed, but rather throughout the process of their rehabilitation.”
Defense Ministry Director-General Amir Baram said the committee would ensure proper implementation of the new government policy.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich praised the approval. He and his ministry had initially opposed providing new funds to finance the changes, pushing instead for previously allocated funds to be used.
Political and public pressure on the issue, especially leading into the election, appears to have decided the intergovernmental dispute.
As recently as Tuesday, Katz attacked the Finance Ministry publicly for holding up the approval.
Since 2023, emotional trauma makes up around half of claims
Unlike past wars, where emotional traumas usually made up about 15% of claims filed, since 2023, nearly 50% of newer post-war claims filed include emotional trauma, such as PTSD. About 25,000 claims have been filed relating to recent wars since 2023.
One major change the committee recommended is financing a weekly visit to help with emotional trauma instead of once every two or three weeks.
In the past, the Defense Ministry has proposed individualizing services for each harmed soldier, including for PTSD, but the new policy would invest in this more heavily with larger budgets.
In addition, the ministry would provide an IDF representative when a harmed soldier comes before the committee for approving or rejecting requests for recognition and benefits.
In the past, many soldiers have complained that the committee treats them too much like litigants instead of showing sensitivity to their sacrifices and traumatic experiences.
Furthermore, the committee said special clinics should be established within areas where medical centers receive PTSD patients so that former soldiers can be around other former soldiers with similar issues. This way, they will not be exposed as much to chronic emotionally traumatized patients who often come from different backgrounds and suffer from different issues.
The ministry also said it would fund, negotiate, and organize the streamlining of carrying out more services for dealing with physical and emotional harm by digital processes and through the various large healthcare insurance companies.
Artificial-intelligence capabilities would also be used to move recognition and treatment processes along faster, it said.
Total claims of harm are now up to 87,000, with about 31,000 trauma and PTSD claims.
About 12,500 of the claimants from the current war, or nearly 50%, are above the age of 30; 16,000 of the claimants, or around 64%, are reservists; and 2,000 of the claimants are women.
IDF makes advancements in AI used to improve mental health treatments
The IDF and the Defense Ministry had made a major advance in using artificial intelligence to improve mental-health operations at medical centers that handle soldiers with PTSD, The Jerusalem Post reported exclusively this past January.
There is a full spectrum of treatments to handle symptoms, including group-based, individual, and occupational therapies. One focus is simply helping individuals calm down in the event of a negative episode.
The new medical IDF AI unit developed procedures for medical professionals to use EEG machines working with AI to provide feedback on individualized “calming cues.”
A soldier can now meet with a mental-health evaluator, using an EEG and AI, and then have a discussion.
There is research about whether exposure to a girlfriend or a beloved song during a rough episode has a better impact and improves stability and calmness, the unit’s commander told the Post.
AI can help figure out triggers for problems or for progress, he said.
Yet another area where AI is assisting in mental health for soldiers is helping reduce professionals’ record-keeping time so that they can invest more time in meeting with patients sooner and more often.
For example, without AI, mental-health professionals could spend a full hour analyzing a given set of records, during which they are not actually meeting with soldiers.
