‘Spectacular’ rise in addiction among Israelis during Gaza war: Study

A recent study finds drug addiction is on a “spectacular” rise in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian land since the regime began its onslaught in Gaza last year in October.

According to the study, which the Israel Center on Addiction conducted in November and December on a representative sample of 1,000 Israelis one in four Israelis have increased their addictive substance use since the war began on October 7.

The study highlighted that in 2022, before Israel’s devastating war on Gaza began, one in seven Israelis struggled with drug addiction.

It added that there is a link between indirect exposure to the October 7 events and an increase in addictive substance consumption of about 25 percent.

“The closer individuals were to the trauma on October 7, the higher the risk” of addictive behaviors, it found.

“As a natural reaction to emotional stress and as a search for relief, we’ve seen a spectacular rise in the consumption of various addictive sedative substances,” Psychiatrist Shaul Lev-Ran, founder of the Israel Center on Addiction, was quoted as saying by AFP.

Lev-Ran said they have identified a rise in the use of “prescription drugs, illegal drugs, alcohol, or addictive behavior like gambling.”

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The Israel Center on Addiction study found an increase in addictive substance consumption among survivors of Hamas's October 7 operation, but also among Israelis displaced since then from communities near the Gaza border or in the north, near Lebanon.

Yoni, a 19-year-old Israeli settler, has to put aside his plans to join the military and instead enter rehab for drug abuse that has worsened since Hamas’s October 7 operation, when he lost a friend. 

He told AFP that he had started taking drugs recreationally before, but “after the war, it seemed to really get worse.”

“It’s just a way to escape from reality, this whole thing,” he said.

According to Lev-Ran “some who had never consumed addictive substances started using cannabis, some used substances but increased their use, and some were already treated for addiction and relapsed.”

Lev-Rab said Israel was already “at the outset of an epidemic in which large swathes of the population will develop an addiction to substances.”

The study found that the use of sleeping pills and painkillers has also skyrocketed, by 180 percent and 70 percent respectively.

The Palestinian Authority told AFP that there was no equivalent data on addiction and mental health for the Palestinian territories where close to 40,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli regime.

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