JAKARTA - An Israeli soldier committed suicide at a military base in northern Israel, bringing the number of deaths by suicide to 61 since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, according to local media.
According to the Haaretz newspaper, a soldier undergoing military service suffered critical injuries after shooting himself inside the base and was pronounced dead on Tuesday night at the hospital, quoted by Anadolu (18/12).
The military statement earlier said a soldier was critically wounded in the shooting at a military base in northern Israel and taken to hospital, where he later died, noting the military police had opened an investigation into the incident.
A total of 279 Israeli soldiers have attempted suicide since the beginning of 2024 to July 2025, which means about one suicide succeeds for every seven attempts, according to a report from the Knesset Research and Information Center.
The Israeli army previously confirmed that 48 soldiers had committed suicide during military service since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023.
At least 13 soldiers have also died by suicide outside the military due to psychological problems, including six since the start of the year; bringing the total number of suicides since the start of the war to 61, Haaretz said.
Twenty Israeli soldiers died by suicide in 2024, and another 16 since the start of the year to July, Haaretz reported, noting that since then at least four additional soldiers have committed suicide.
In October, the Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) Eyal Zamir acknowledged the worsening mental health crisis within the military, saying thousands of soldiers received psychological treatment.
He urged commanders to remain vigilant, detect mental health problems within their units, and ensure that soldiers seek treatment promptly.
It is known that almost 10,000 Israeli soldiers out of 19,000 wounded in Gaza suffered psychological disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder and are being treated in the Rehabilitation Department of the Ministry of Defense, according to a previous report by the public broadcaster KAN published at the end of July.
On Tuesday, medical sources confirmed that the death toll in Gaza since the latest conflict in the Gaza Strip broke out on October 7, 2023 has reached 70,667 people, the majority of whom are children and women, quoted from WAFA.
The same source also confirmed that the number of injured people has reached 171,151 since the conflict broke out.
On the other hand, the total number of casualties since the ceasefire agreement on October 11, 2023 has reached 393 people dead and 1,074 people injured, with 634 bodies found.
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