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Israeli reservist ends own life after being called up for active duty: Broadcaster

An Israeli trooper is seen in front of an armored vehicle near the occupied Palestinian territories’ border with the Gaza Strip on October 9, 2023. (Photo by AFP)

An Israeli reservist has ended his life after being called up for active duty, the regime’s broadcaster reports.

The Israeli Public Broadcasting Authority aired the report on Monday, without naming the trooper in question.

The report came less than a week after Israeli paper Ha’aretz reported the suicide of a reservist, which it named as Asaf, who had taken his own life earlier after turning up for a call-up.

According to the daily, Asaf’s death followed hundreds of appeals sent by her mother over three years for attention to his situation from the Israeli military, Knesset (the Israeli parliament), and the regime’s cabinet.

“Yet the responses ranged from disregard to scorn,” Ha’aretz wrote of the conditions suffered by Asaf, “who was struggling since his discharge.”

Last month too, the CNN reported the suicide of Eliran Mizrahi, a 40-year-old reservist, who had ended his life after returning from Gaza.

The Israeli military withholds figures on the number of the troops, who have committed suicide following enlistment in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, where the regime has respectively been waging a genocidal war and escalated deadly aggression since last October.

The military has sufficed to reveal that “thousands” of its forces have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or other mental illnesses.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has, however, asserted that the regime seeks to prolong the war until “elimination” of the Gaza-based resistance movement Hamas, a prospect that has been ruled out as impossible by the group and even some Israeli officials and Tel Aviv’s allies.

Back in June, Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari, himself, asserted, “Whoever thinks we can eliminate Hamas is wrong,” adding, “Hamas is an idea, Hamas is a party. It’s rooted in the hearts of the people.”

Yossi Yehoshua, a journalist with the regime’s Yedioth Ahronoth paper, meanwhile, pointed to the pressure that was being experienced by the military as it seeks to realize the so-called objective.

“The reality on the ground is difficult: The army urgently needs 7,000 fighters. The army claimed last August that they would be able to recruit 3,000 ultra-Orthodox soldiers, but in the previous year were only able to recruit 1,200 out of approximately 13,000 candidates. [Despite] the 3,000 conscription warrants issued for the ultra-Orthodox, only 240 showed up, which is only 8%,” he said.

“The Israeli military predicts that it will not meet its recruitment targets even if it issues the 9,000 conscription orders for the ultra-Orthodox men as planned, and therefore requires increasing the orders by several thousands,” he added.


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