Three years after the outbreak of the Israeli occupation war on Gaza, data from the Israeli Clalit Health Services, based on records from around five million insured members, reveal mounting physical and psychological health consequences, with children and residents of areas from which people were evacuated appearing to be particularly affected, Maariv reported.
According to a report by the newspaper, visits by children and young settlers to psychiatric emergency departments rose by 121.3 percent in the third year of the war compared with the pre-war period. Referrals by pediatricians to mental health services increased by 52.1 percent, while diagnoses of anxiety among children rose by between 40 percent and 70 percent.
The newspaper said the data indicate that the psychological impact of the war is persisting. New anxiety diagnoses among the general population increased by 45.5 percent in the first year, while diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder doubled.
Among people evacuated from the south, diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder increased eighteenfold in the first year and remained eleven times higher in the second year and six times higher in the third. Sleep disorders among this group rose by 358 percent in the first year, while anxiety diagnoses increased tenfold.
The newspaper noted that the effects of psychological distress were also reflected in physical health indicators, particularly among children.
It reported a 5.1 percent decline in visits to hospital emergency departments and a decline in urgent hospitalizations over the years, particularly in mental health admissions involving children, young people, and evacuees. At the same time, use of medications for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder increased by 25 percent in the third year, underscoring the need to strengthen mental health services and screening.
Physical Health Also Affected
The repercussions were not limited to mental health. According to the newspaper, the proportion of people with uncontrolled blood pressure among evacuees from the south rose by as much as 53.7 percent, compared with 2.5 percent among the general population.
New diagnoses of elevated blood lipids and cholesterol increased by 20 percent overall and by 60 percent among evacuees from the north. By contrast, there was no clear increase in rates of heart attacks or strokes.
Preventive medicine was also affected. Mammography screening among women evacuated from the north fell by as much as 7.5 percent, while colorectal cancer screening declined by between 2.5 percent and 3.5 percent among evacuees.
At the same time, use of smoking-cessation medications increased by 104 percent among evacuees from the south.
Changes in Access to Medical Care
The pattern of medical service use also changed during the war. In-person primary care visits fell by 13 percent, while telephone consultations increased by 3 percent and by 50 percent among evacuees.
Meanwhile, visits to emergency departments declined by 5.1 percent and urgent hospitalizations by 10 percent, while children’s visits to general emergency departments fell by 8.7 percent.
Clalit warned that some of the effects of the war could persist for years, particularly those affecting the mental health of children, young people, and evacuees.
Military Exhaustion and Worsening Living Conditions
The broader consequences of three years of war were also highlighted by Maariv military analyst Avi Ashkenazi, who said the Israeli military is exhausted and overstretched, without full government support, amid shortages of personnel and military equipment.
Ashkenazi said reserve soldiers have already lost their civilian careers, with some also losing their families as a result of prolonged service. Regular-service soldiers, meanwhile, have been pushed to the limit, he said, without adequate training, leave, or rights.
According to Ashkenazi, the military is heading in a dangerous direction and should not be allowed to reach its breaking point. He argued that the consequences of an untrained military, whose soldiers are repeatedly required to work while receiving inadequate treatment, are already apparent.
Ashkenazi also drew a connection between the hijacking of Flydubai Flight 1037 and the October 7 massacre, arguing that both reflect failures of oversight and accountability.
“If anyone believes we learned the lesson from October 7, 2023, they are mistaken,” he said, citing intelligence failures, a lack of oversight by the security establishment and political leadership, and the government’s failure to investigate itself to prevent similar disasters from recurring.
He said a culture of avoiding responsibility was becoming entrenched.
Ashkenazi further criticized what he described as a “victory festival” surrounding Flight 1037, led in recent days by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, arguing that authorities should instead have investigated how the failure occurred.
The problem, he said, extends beyond the current political leadership, pointing to what he described as government failures across security and other areas.
“The army is collapsing under the burden of its missions, the shortage of soldiers, and the shortage of military equipment,” Ashkenazi said, adding that the October 7 failure had not been properly investigated and that operational lessons had not been drawn.
Ashkenazi also pointed to worsening conditions in other areas, saying education is in poor shape, the cost of living has reached “enormous” levels, and the public is experiencing a state of decline and collapse, without anyone “holding the wheel” before the country hits the ground.
He said “Israel” had lost its ability to govern in both the north and south, while the police were in a state of collapse and unable to confront what he described as a wave of killings, extortion, home invasions, violence, and road accidents.
In the West Bank, he said, the Israeli military was no longer exercising sovereignty, arguing that a group of around 200 “Hilltop Youth” members and far-right activists were instead setting the rules and agenda.
Ashkenazi stressed that the problem was not limited to the current political leadership or the elected government but also involved opposition lawmakers, whom he said had an important role in what he described “safeguarding Israel’s security and challenging the government.”
He also sharply criticized the campaign advisers of opposition figures Gadi Eisenkot, Avigdor Lieberman, Naftali Bennett, Yair Lapid, and Yair Golan, saying they had failed to respond forcefully or courageously enough to the failures of the current political leadership.
Referring to the Flight 1037 incident and what he described as failures in civil aviation security, Ashkenazi said the opposition had failed to demand adequate scrutiny, investigations, and change. Instead, he argued, politicians were preoccupied with the question of who would eventually become prime minister.
“The ship is already sinking,” he said. “Hello, wake up.”
Taken together, the figures and assessments depict a society bearing an increasingly heavy human and social cost after three years of war, alongside mounting military strain and institutional failures. The findings also underscore growing scrutiny of the Israeli government’s management of the conflict and its failure, according to the assessments cited, to adequately confront its far-reaching consequences. The picture that emerges is one of deepening internal pressures, with the costs of the war continuing to reverberate across Israeli society.