The group of Israeli army veterans meets in the departures hall of Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport. They’re anywhere from 20 to 50 years old, and glad to be back together. They hold one another, laughing, and slap each other on the back.
For a year now, these 18 men have come together to give them a chance to speak, and be heard, and to support one another. Accompanied by a team of psychologists, they are all living with varying degrees of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). At the invitation of donors who have funded the programme, they are all on their way to spend a week in New York.
Most of them have no interest in speaking to the media. But Lior Tapicer, a burly blond man with a broad grin, steps forward and lowers his voice. Lior Tapicer at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport. © David Gormezano, FRANCE 24 Twenty-nine years old, Tapicer has been discharged from the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) and is now working as a naturopath, he said.
He says that the trauma that had made him unfit to keep going as an army reservist first took root in him during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attacks. As reports of the attacks on southern Israel spread, he joined his unit and rushed off to the kibbutzim near the border with the Gaza Strip, where combat with Hamas militants and other Palestinian fighters was still raging. It was scary as shit – I remember the feeling of being in my own country, and being afraid that I could die at any second.” Read more‘I don't recognise the country I grew up in anymore’: Some Israelis tempted by exile “We went into a house – there was shooting, but we were staying silent so they didn’t know we were there”, he said in a detached voice.
I won’t describe it.” A few days later, he entered the Palestinian territory with his combat unit. Having served as a soldier in the Israeli-occupied West Bank since he turned 18, he admits that he was burning for vengeance. I’m going to get revenge.’ That’s what I felt in the moment – a lot of hate.” He broke after four months of fighting.
One night, his comrades found him shaking uncontrollably, unable to stand. They decided to have him taken away from the front. Alon Reshef, a psychiatrist trialling psychadelic treatments for PTSD. © David Gormezano, FRANCE 24 Although Tapicer was back with his unit 10 days later, he slowly began to realise that his body refused to keep going.
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