Ever since 26-year-old Itzik Saidyan set himself alight outside the Petah Tikva Rehabilitation Department for disabled soldiers, on April 12, medical staff at the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv have been battling to save his life. Now doctors report that his condition is deteriorating and that his life is in immediate danger. A veteran of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), Saidyan had been fighting with government bureaucracy for years to get the treatment he needed for his posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
According to a statement released by the Israeli Defense Force Veteran's Association, the Defense Ministry had recognized Saidyan as having a 25 percent disability rather than the 50 percent that he felt would get him better care. The ministry had disputed this insisting that at least part of his PTSD came from childhood trauma rather than occurring due to his military service. The Veteran's Association countered this claim by stressing that Saidyan had served in the Golani Infantry Brigade during the 2014 Gaza War as part of Operation Protective Edge. He had also participated in the Battle of Shuja’iyya, a neighborhood in Gaza City that saw some of the fiercest fighting in the conflict with seven of his "brothers in arms" being killed around him. Days after his self-immolation, one of Saidyan's close friends told Israeli television about the frustration resulting from his long battle to get treatment. He said that the military bureaucracy “treated him like a swindler who is trying to cheat the country" and that he had faced enormous difficulties in returning to civilian life and that surfing was his only real outlet for dealing with his trauma.
While serving in the Israeli Defense Force is mandatory for all Israeli citizens, the IDF Veterans Organization has long protested the often arbitrary way in which veterans are returned to civilian life after serving. "When their mandatory service is over, our young men and women, including those who have directly risked their lives in combat, are routinely dropped back into their civilian lives without diagnosis and treatment of any psychological damage they may have suffered — without, that is, mandatory, end-of-service evaluation, subsequent checks, and appropriate support
Tragically, Saidyan's self-immolation may have served as a wakeup call for the military and veterans alike. According to sources in the IDF Veterans' organization, "In the day after Saidyan’s act of despair and desperation, the Natal support group for IDF veterans battling trauma saw a 300 percent surge in calls for help, most of them from combat soldiers who fought in that 2014 Operation Protective Edge." The director general of the Defense Ministry, visibly shaken over Saidyan's self-immolation, promised publicly that a commission of inquiry would be formed to look into policy changes to prevent future tragedies.
An Israeli television report announced that only 200 Israelis who fought in the Gaza War have been officially recognized as suffering from PTSD. Though the number of those actually affected is believed to be much higher, having that trauma recognized and getting the necessary treatment for it continues to be a challenge for most veterans.
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