Suicide no.1 cause of death in IDF

Israel & Palestine Forum

Suicide no.1 cause of death in IDF

Amir Rapoport

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/rdonlyres/2700DC9C-CCDB-4978-981E-2A8403EEAE34/42936/68D316C9091F466CB82977350D172948.jpg

43 soldiers committed suicide in 2003, a 30% increase. In comparison, 30 soldiers were killed during military operations.

The greatest fear of a family sending their children to the army is that they will be killed during a military operation but an internal report conducted by the security services reveals that parents should be more concerned about suicide.

According to a report prepared by the Rehabilitation Division in the Ministry of Defense referring to 2003, the number of soldiers who committed suicide was significantly higher than the number of soldiers killed during military action or who died from any other cause.

The report disclosed that for the first time, suicide became the leading cause of death in the IDF. Last year, 43 soldiers committed suicide, in contrast with 30 soldiers who were killed during military operations, a 30% increase in the number of suicides in comparison with 2002, when 31 soldiers took their own lives.

Last year, 32 soldiers died of illness, 27 in traffic accidents or during vacations, and 10 were killed in traffic accidents while on duty. Nine soldiers were killed during training practice exercises and four during the course of military operations. Eight soldiers died due to other reasons.

Ministry of Defense data further revealed that suicide is not a transient phenomenon. In the first half of 2004 alone, 15 additional soldiers killed themselves.

The rise in the number of suicides in the IDF in 2003, and the fact that suicide has become the number 1 cause of death, has stunned the IDF. Senior security sources who received the report requested that steps be taken in order to fight the phenomenon. Criticism was heard within the IDF regarding the fact that the army “not only has not been able to reduce the number of suicides over the years, but the phenomenon has actually increased”.

Source : Maariv International

I wonder why

There simply is no hope for you whatsoever.

Why not get yourselve a vest and go to Palestine?

Could you atleast talk about the subject?

You're not presenting anything worth discussing. You're constantly presenting how Israel is oppressing your people on a daily basis. Anyone with half a brain that's seen your posts knows exactly why you're posting this. It's not for information, it's merely the smear campaign you've been on since you've arrived in these forums.

What does this post have to do with Israel oppressing the Palestinians?

This post is about what affect the occupation has on the IDF soldiers, not only are some committing suicide, but there are about 600 who refuse to be war crimminals ( serve in the occupation ).

So you think that IDF soldiers are committing suicide because of the "occupation"?

I guess they are depressed because of the oppressed

And you call me a comedian

Yes, because they are tired of serving and the things that they do is very oppressing, they dont want to do it, and if they refuse, they get jailed like those 5 Israelis who got jailed.

Things like these are not funny at all.

Who knows TWBR. There are like 600,000 active IDF troops at any given time. If in one given year 43 commit suicide, that only raises an eyebrow if it is a lot more than the previous year. But even then, some small percentage of every large group of people commit suicide every year. And I can tell you that even a large fluctuation in a number that small to begin with is not statistically significant. If it was 24 one year and 43 the next, it would be a random fluctuation. Perhaps if statistics showed the rate going up every year for 5 years that would mean something as a trend. Also the statistics given are absolute numbers and not a per capita, which is another problem.

People commit suicide for a variety of reasons, chief among them clinical depression. Clinical depression is generally caused by seratonin deficiency.

Thanks for the article.

- woolfe

I agree Woolfe, heres what an Israeli peace activist had to say :

An Israeli peace activist, who spoke to Aljazeera.net on condition of anonymity, said she believed many of the soldiers who went on to take their own lives, simply couldn't live with the moral burden of causing avoidable and unjustified deaths in the occupied Palestinian territories.

"They are ordered to do things that go against their moral values … and when they do – because, after all, a good soldier is one who obeys orders, not one who thinks - they are left with this terrible burden which evolves into depression and eventually leads to suicide."

Last month, a number of former conscripts who had just finished their army service in the southern West Bank town of Hebron, described vividly the manner in which they mistreated and humiliated Palestinian civilians.

The group set up a photo exhibition opposite the Defence Ministry complex in Tel Aviv, featuring graphic pictures of ordinary Palestinians being tormented, often in a sadistic manner, by occupation soldiers.

The Israeli army tried unsuccessfully to prevent the exhibition on the grounds that it tarnished its image and undermined "the war on terror".

I'll have to agree that you can't just say the occupation caused the suicides. Even if you had a trend that showed the number of soldiers committing suicide increasing each year, you still can't draw that conclusion. All you can say is that it's statistically significant.

You need to observe and look at other factors that might contribute to this idea. I detailed the whole use of correlation and causation in a previous post I've written. Statistics are a lot harder explain than people think.

Yea, i do understand, but no reasons are given for the suicides, the only one that comes to mind is the one that has been stated above.

Understandable, but I wouldn't be surprised if just serving in the military alone could have contributed, but I think a psychological profile of each would shed more light onto the matter.

I would kill myself also if everyday I had to go to the scene of blown apart bodies.

I believe the same soldiers would have killed themselves had they been in the Russian army or the US army (not volunteers).

Taking away your freedom, not seeing home for around 70-80% of these 3 years, when punishments are base-grounding (less freedom). You don't know how many soldiers escape the bases in order to be home!

There isn't a single soldier who hasn't screamed or wrote on a wall "till when?!". 3 years seem like an eternity and all the soldiers really want is to be free. The day of release is their biggest dream. There's not a day when a soldier doesn't think about his home. Officers who sign 1 or more years of additional service do it mostly for money and conditions.

There's no patriotism, no will to serve in the army. It's mostly a tiring job of guarding, carrying things from one place to another, helping the cook in the kitchen and so on. Can u stand in one place for around 4 or 8 hours? Disallowed to do anything but standing and watching, and sitting a few minutes every hour. You get bored to death after 1 of those. But you have dozens of guarding shifts and one day you feel you've had enough. But what can you do?

Soldiers get so bored, they're dying to see some action, they wish a Palestinian would throw a molotov cocktail or that there would be a demonstration to disperse, something that will break the boring and neverending routine. Some of them "create action" and do bad things (ex. A Police border soldier asked his friend to throw a rock at his foot, when he did that, the soldier came to a Palestinian nearby and blamed him for doing this, hitting him for a made-up reason.) , but they're a minority and they mostly never get the chance to "create" such action. Others commit suicide or lower their profiles in order to have better service conditions or to get released from the army. But soldiers who lower their profile and get released from the army are rejected in most jobs, because that is one of the requirements.

A military service is a hard period, people's health decreases and they lose the best years of their youth: 18-21 (most of them) Most of the guys I know (who had girlfriends before the army) broke up with them because it was too hard not seeing each other for so long.

Some commit suicide because of problems at home. Some guys who had no courage to kill themselves before the army, received a weapon - a good way to kill themselves. An instrument of suicide which they carry with them wherever they go, all you have to do is pull the trigger.