Millions of Cubans remained without power for a third day in a row Sunday after fresh attempts to restore electricity failed overnight

The Cuban Electrical Union said about 16% of the country had had power restored when the aging energy grid again overloaded late Saturday. Officials did not provide an update on when service would be reestablished.

This marks the third full collapse of Cuba’s energy grid since Friday, and most in the 10 million-strong country have had their access to power interrupted the whole time.

Recovery efforts will be complicated further by the arrival of Hurricane Oscar in eastern Cuba, which is expected to bring heavy winds and surf, forecasters said.

Cuba’s first island-wide blackout happened on Friday, when one of the country’s major power plants failed, according to the energy ministry.

Hours after officials said power was being slowly restored, the country suffered a second nationwide blackout on Saturday morning.

The blackouts threaten to plunge the communist-run nation into a deeper crisis. Water supply and keeping food fresh are both dependent on reliable power.

Some people began flooding WhatsApp chats with updates on which areas had power, while others arranged to store medications in the fridges of those who briefly had power – or were lucky enough to have a generator.

In Havana, residents waited for hours to buy a few loaves from the handful of locations selling bread in the capital. When the bread sold out, several people argued angrily that they had been skipped in line.

Many wondered aloud where Cuba’s traditional allies were, such as Venezuela, Russia and Mexico. Until now, they had been supplying the island with badly needed barrels of oil to keep the lights on.

Meanwhile, tourists were still seen circling Havana’s main avenues in classic 1950s cars, although many hotel generators had run out of fuel.

Cuban officials have blamed the energy crisis on a confluence of events, from increased US economic sanctions to disruptions caused by recent hurricanes and the impoverished state of the island’s infrastructure.

In a televised address on Thursday that was delayed by technical difficulties, Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz said much of the country’s limited production was stopped to avoid leaving people completely without power.

“We have been paralyzing economic activity to generate (power) to the population,” he said.

The country’s health minister, José Angel Portal Miranda, said Friday on X that the country’s health facilities were running on generators and that health workers continued to provide vital services.

Reuters reporters witnessed two small protests overnight into Sunday, while videos of protests elsewhere in the capital have also surfaced.

The video depicts a desperate, abandoned man trying to attack a sophisticated military drone with a wooden stick. Or perhaps it shows a defiant hero who is staring the enemy in the eye while fighting till the bitter end. It depends on who is watching.

When the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced the killing of Yahya Sinwar last week, they released several photos and a video showing the Hamas leader during his last moments alive and after his death.

It was meant to be proof that the man they said was one of the main architects of the October 7 terror attack was indeed dead, and a warning to Israel’s enemies that no matter where they hide, the IDF will eventually get them.

But the decision to release the footage appears to have backfired, at least in part, as it has since been used to celebrate Sinwar for dying as a martyr and a resistance fighter.

Now, Israel is in damage control mode, releasing older photos and videos of Sinwar hiding in tunnels with stashes of money in an attempt to portray the Hamas leader as a selfish man who only ever cared for himself.

Gershon Baskin, a Middle East expert, peace activist and a former Israeli hostage negotiator who used to speak to Hamas through backchannels, said the release of the footage was misguided and likely motivated by Israeli politics.

As a negotiator for Israel, Baskin mediated the 2011 prisoner swap that saw more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners exchanged for Gilad Shalit, an IDF soldier who had been held in Gaza for five years. Yahya Sinwar was among the Palestinian prisoners released in that deal.

The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been under criticism from all sides over the way the war in Gaza is going. Domestically, it is facing huge anger over its inability to bring back the 101 hostages still held in Gaza. Internationally, it is under pressure over the mounting Palestinian death toll and horrific humanitarian situation in the strip.

“They have no idea that (by releasing the video) they are cementing the legacy of Sinwar in Palestine and the Arab world as a new kind of Saladin, a hero, a fighter to the very end,” he said, referring to the famous 12th-century Muslim warrior who defeated a much bigger Crusader army and conquered Jerusalem.

Hamas was quick to seize the narrative and declare Sinwar a martyr who fought and died for the cause, but even Palestinians who have opposed Sinwar and Hamas in the past said the photos and video show defiance and bravery.

“And this image will make him look like a hero for most Palestinians and most Arabs and most people who are against Israeli occupation and against the oppression that Palestinians are subjected to,” he added.

The video also raises questions about the way Sinwar was killed. The IDF, Israel’s security services and its intelligence agency Shin Bet had been searching for Sinwar for over a year, getting help from the CIA. Yet in the end, it was only by pure chance that a group of soldiers stumbled upon Sinwar and killed him.

At first, they didn’t even know who it was they had killed – the video shows Sinwar wearing a face covering and military clothes. It was only a day later when Israeli soldiers returned to the building to examine the scene that they realized it was Sinwar.

‘Truth is in the eye of the beholder’

Gil Siegal, a legal scholar and head of the Center for Medical Law, Bioethics and Health Policy at the Ono Academic College in Israel, said the fact that the video was used by both Israel and Hamas to make a point that suited their respective goals was not a surprise.

“The truth is in the eye of the beholder. Objectively, the picture shows a person covered with dust, clearly injured, attempting to throw an object on a drone. This is the fact, the objective fact,” he said.

“Now let’s interpret this fact. One would say: ‘oh, you see this person is fighting to his last gasp.’ The second would say: ‘you see, this is the Stone Age fighting the age of startups and technology.’ And the third will say: ‘you see, even at the last moment, this person remains violent and determined to cause damage,’ and so on.”

Siegal said there were likely several reasons why the IDF released the materials publicly, including a desire to show that Sinwar was in fact dead.

“It’s a proof. For example, people said that (Hamas’ military chief) Mohammed Deif is still alive. There were days of refutation following (the death of the Hezbollah leader) Hassan Nasrallah,” he said.

To counter the portrayal of Sinwar as a brave martyr, the IDF has since released several videos and photos of him hiding in the tunnels underneath Gaza with his family, accompanied by claims about him living a comfortable life and prioritizing himself over his people. The IDF said the footage had been captured by a Hamas security camera on October 6 and October 10 last year and obtained by the IDF in recent days.

Avichay Adraee, the IDF’s Arabic spokesperson, said the IDF found huge sums of money, food and water in Sinwar’s hideouts. “He was hiding with his family in a luxurious tunnel while the children of Gaza were out in the open as a result of his crimes and brutality,” Adraee said on X.

Posting a photo of Sinwar’s wife carrying a bag, Adraee suggested the accessory was a luxury piece that cost tens of thousands of dollars.  “While the people of Gaza do not have enough money for a tent or basic necessities, we see many examples of Yahya Sinwar and his wife’s special love for money,” he said.

Shira Efron, senior director of policy research at the Israel Policy Forum, said the release of photos and videos from the tunnels was likely an attempt at “course correction on the part of Israel.”

Israel’s narrative had long been that Sinwar left the people of Gaza to suffer while he was sheltering underground, surrounding himself with the hostages taken from Israel as an insurance policy, she said.

“And then, all of a sudden, what you see is this guy and not only is he not in the tunnel and not with hostages, he’s fighting heroically like the last soldier, right, wearing armor, he looks thinner and even with his arm hanging, he lost an arm and he’s still fighting. This was not Israel’s intent,” she said, adding that the videos posted subsequently by the IDF are an attempt to reinforce their preferred narrative.

It is a known fact backed by Western intelligence agencies that Hamas has built a vast network of underground tunnels in Gaza, using them to store weapons, to move around undetected and to shelter.

The IDF said repeatedly that it believed Sinwar was moving around the tunnel network accompanied by hostages and said his DNA was found in a tunnel near where the bodies of six hostages who were killed by Hamas in late August were found.

Hamas has already issued a statement rebutting the Israeli version of events, accusing the IDF of “blatant lies” and “a failed theatrical performance” in its portrayal of the last year of Sinwar’s life.

The group said Sinwar was killed while “engaging in the battlefield” after having spent the past year “moving across various combat fronts in the Gaza Strip,” adding that “Commander Sinwar and his brothers” had humiliated the Israeli army.

But Siegal said that there was likely another reason for the IDF releasing the video showing Sinwar all alone at the end.

“Those who lead a revolution, those who lead a military campaign, are usually surrounded by the people that support them, people that live for them, people that will do everything in their power to help him. And guess what? This person supposedly fighting for the Palestinian people, the people left him by himself. He was all by himself,” he said.

Indonesia’s Prabowo Subianto on Sunday took over as president of the world’s third-largest democracy, vowing to combat internal issues such as corruption that plague the country and to make it more self-sufficient.

The 73-year-old has undergone a remarkable transformation, from being a former military commander facing unproven allegations of rights abuses to sweeping the polls and now leading the country of 280 million people.

Wearing a traditional black hat and navy suit with a woven maroon and golden sarong, Prabowo officially became Indonesia’s eighth president on Sunday morning after he was sworn in during a ceremony at Indonesia’s parliament.

Prabowo, who unsuccessfully ran for the presidency twice before, said in a fiery speech to lawmakers he would be president for all Indonesians and challenged the nation to help him face down the country’s problems.

“We must always realise that a free nation is where the people are free,” Prabowo said, at times raising his voice.

“They must be freed of fear, poverty, hunger, ignorance, oppression, suffering,” he said.

In a wide-ranging speech lasting about an hour, Prabowo said self-sufficiency for food was possible within five years, while also pledging to become self-sufficient in energy.

The new president vowed to eradicate corruption and said that while he wanted to live in a democracy, it must be “polite”.

“A difference of opinion must come without enmity … fighting without hating,” he said.

Prabowo won the Feb. 14 contest with nearly 60% of the vote and has spent the past nine months building a formidable parliamentary coalition.

He was joined in the swearing-in ceremony by his running mate, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, 37, the eldest son of outgoing President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo.

Later on Sunday, Prabowo announced his cabinet at the presidential palace. While it had of a mix of professional and political appointees, most of the economics-related ministers remained the same as those under Jokowi.

One key announcement was for the foreign ministry, which will now be led by Sugiono, a former member of the army’s special forces.

The cabinet will be sworn in on Monday morning.

Greeting supporters

After his speech, Prabowo wore a baseball cap and waved through a car sunroof as he made his way to the presidential palace, passing thousands of flag-waving supporters thronging Jakarta’s streets in a festival-like atmosphere.

Flower boards outside the palace either congratulated Prabowo and Gibran or thanked Jokowi for his decade of service.

Jokowi supporters are also attending the celebrations to bid farewell to Indonesia’s outgoing leader.

Anneta Yuniar, a bystander who had excitedly waved at Jokowi’s motorcade as it slowly made its way past supporters before the ceremony, said she would miss Jokowi but that Prabowo was a strong leader.

“Prabowo will continue the development that Jokowi started. There’s continuity. It’s what I want,” she said.

Jokowi has left an indelible mark on the nation of 280 million, presiding over a period of strong economic growth and massive infrastructure development.

Critics also say, though, his rule has been marked by a rise in old-time patronage and dynastic politics, and they warn about diminished integrity in courts and other state institutions.

Indonesian police and military have put in place strict security measures, deploying at least 100,000 personnel across the city, including snipers and anti-riot units.

Prabowo met with foreign dignitaries, including a number of heads of state, on Sunday at the presidential palace.

China sent Vice President Han Zheng to the inauguration, while the delegation from the United States is being led by US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield.

Prabowo also touched on foreign policy during his speech, saying Indonesia was non-aligned on the global stage, but that he stood in support of the Palestinian people and said Jakarta was ready to send more aid to Gaza.

During his campaign, Prabowo billed himself to voters and investors alike as the “continuity candidate”.

Past allegations against Prabowo of involvement in the kidnapping of student activists and human rights abuses in Papua and East Timor, however, have also raised concern about Indonesia’s trajectory of democracy, human rights advocates say.

Prabowo has always denied the allegations that led to his dismissal from the military in 1998, the same year Indonesia broke free from the decades-long authoritarian rule of former President Suharto.

At least 87 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike that hit several multi-story buildings overnight Saturday on Beit Lahia in northern Gaza, the enclave’s health ministry said.

The number killed includes 27 bodies retrieved so far and 60 people under the rubble. More than 40 people had been injured, including a number of very critical cases, the ministry said.

Graphic footage showed the bodies of several children among the dead, many with extensive injuries. Other video showed numerous body bags at the hospital amid grieving relatives. Overnight footage showed rescue workers combing through tonnes of rubble in the search for survivors and victims. Daylight images appear to show that two or three substantial apartment buildings were flattened by the strike.

One unidentified man at the scene said Sunday morning that there were displaced people in four homes that were destroyed. “We call on the international community to end the war,” he said. “We beg you, we are civilians with no connection to anyone. We demand that you stop the war.”

Another woman, crying amid the damage, said a woman had held her legs while she was under the rubble. “We were sitting and talking to each other when suddenly a large concrete block fell on us,” she said. “What remains? They have killed all the people.”

The woman said that Israel “directed people to go to Beit Lahia and bombed them there.”

The Israeli military has issued a number of evacuation orders for northern Gaza this month where it has renewed its ground offensive.

The hospital’s director also said the area around the hospital is coming under “bombardment and direct gunfire.”

The United Nations’ Special Coordinator for the Peace Process in the Middle East, Tor Wennesland, in a statement expressed horror at the airstrike, saying that “the nightmare in Gaza is intensifying.”

“Horrifying scenes are unfolding in the northern Strip amidst conflict, relentless Israeli strikes and an ever-worsening humanitarian crisis,” Wennesland said, adding that “civilians must be protected wherever they are.”

The airstrike comes as the Israeli military ramps up its operations again in northern Gaza, saying Hamas was regrouping in the area, and as Israel presses on with its war against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. The military said it targeted the Hezbollah intelligence headquarters early on Sunday.

Israel’s war on both fronts has shown no signs of abating despite the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar on Thursday after a year-long pursuit.

Sinwar’s death is the latest blow to the Palestinian militant group in Gaza, where the enclave’s health ministry says more than 42,000 people have been killed since October 7. But Western officials have said that the pivotal moment could be used to cement a ceasefire and bring back hostages still trapped in the besieged territory.

This story has been updated.

Britain’s King Charles III had just finished giving a speech to Australia’s Parliament House on Monday when an Indigenous senator began yelling, “You are not my king.”

From the back of the room, Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe shouted at the royal couple, “Give us our land back, give us what you stole,” as security officers moved to escort her away.

The interjection came as King Charles and Queen Camilla visited the Australian capital Canberra to meet the nation’s leaders, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

During his speech, King Charles acknowledged Australia’s First Nations people, who lived on the land for tens of thousands of years before the arrival of British settlers over 230 years ago.

“Throughout my life, Australia’s First Nations people have done me the great honor of sharing so generously their stories and cultures,” King Charles said.

“I can only say how much my own experience has been shaped and strengthened by such traditional wisdom.”

Earlier, a traditional Aboriginal welcoming ceremony was held outside Parliament House for the royal couple, but for many of the country’s Indigenous population, they are not welcome.

The arrival of British settlers to Australia led to the massacre of Indigenous people at hundreds of locations around the country until as recently as the 1930s. Their ancestors still suffer from racism and systemic discrimination in a country that has failed to reverse centuries of disadvantage.

Thorpe, a DjabWurrung Gunnai Gunditjmara woman, has long campaigned for a treaty and has previously voiced her fierce objections to the British monarchy.

Australian’s Indigenous people never ceded sovereignty and have never engaged in a treaty process with the British Crown. Australia remains a Commonwealth country with the King as its Head of State.

During her swearing-in ceremony in 2022, Thorpe referred to Australia’s then-Head of State as “the colonizing Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II,” and was asked to take the oath again.

She did so while raising one fist in the air.

On Monday, protesters stood with an Aboriginal flag as the royal couple visited the Australian War Memorial. A 62-year-old man was arrested for failing to comply with a police direction.

Before she yelled at the King, Thorpe turned her back during a recital of “God Save the King,” Australian media reported. Images showed her wearing a possum-fur coat, standing in the opposite direction of other attendees.

The Greens party said in a statement that the King’s presence was “a momentous occasion for some” but also a “visual reminder of the ongoing colonial trauma and legacies of British colonialism” for many First Nations people.

In the statement, Greens Senator Dorinda Cox, a Yamatji Noongar woman, called for the King to be clear in his recognition and support of “First Nations justice, truth telling and healing.”

“He now needs to be on the right side of history,” she added.

The Australian Monarchist League demanded Thorpe’s resignation after what it called a “childish demonstration.”

Royal supporters and a sneezing alpaca

King Charles and Queen Camilla arrived in Sydney on Friday, part of the monarch’s first tour to a Commonwealth realm since acceding the throne.

It’s the King’s first long-haul multi-country trip since his cancer diagnosis earlier this year, and his schedule is said to have been lightened on medical advice.

However, Monday’s outing was a blur of activity that began with a meet and greet with supporters, many waving Australian flags.

Among them was an alpaca by the name of Hephner, who caught the King’s eye and immediately sneezed on him.

Royal fan Chloe Pailthorpe, 44, said she was excited about the royal tour and had been writing to the royal household since age 10.

“We just love what the royals do and how they impact local communities, and support what we do with volunteering, and just community service work,” she told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

A 21-gun salute heralded the King’s arrival at Parliament House, and in his speech, Albanese commended the royal couple for their charitable work.

He also commented on the King’s early appreciation of the “the grave reality of climate change” and the necessity for humans to “take meaningful and effective action against it.”

To reflect his interest in the environment, the King was invited to plant trees at Parliament House and the Botanic Gardens.

The royal couple’s next stop will be Sydney on Tuesday for a public reception outside the Opera House before they fly to Samoa for the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), the king’s first as head of the organization.

Editor’s note: This story includes details about suicide that some readers may find upsetting.

A 40-year-old father of four, Eliran Mizrahi deployed to Gaza after the deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

“He got out of Gaza, but Gaza did not get out of him. And he died after it, because of the post-trauma,” his mother, Jenny Mizrahi, said.

The Israeli military has said it is providing care for thousands of soldiers who are suffering from PTSD or mental illnesses caused by trauma during the war. It is unclear how many have taken their own lives, as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has not provided an official figure.

One year on, Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 42,000 people, according to the health ministry in the strip, with the United Nations reporting that most of the dead are women and children.

The war, launched after Hamas killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostage, is already Israel’s longest since the Jewish state was established. And as it now expands to Lebanon, some soldiers say they dread being drafted into yet another conflict.

For many soldiers, the war in Gaza is a fight for Israel’s survival and must be won by any means. But the battle is also taking a mental toll that, due to stigma, is largely hidden from view. Interviews with Israeli soldiers, a medic, and the family of Mizrahi, the reservist who took his own life, provide a window into the psychological burden that the war is casting on Israeli society.

Bulldozing ‘terrorists, dead and alive’

Mizrahi deployed to Gaza on October 8 last year and was tasked with driving a D-9 bulldozer, a 62-ton armored vehicle that can withstand bullets and explosives.

The reservist spent 186 days in the enclave until he sustained injuries to his knee, followed by hearing damage in February when a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) struck his vehicle, his family said. He was pulled out of Gaza for treatment, and in April was diagnosed with PTSD, receiving weekly talk therapy.

His treatment did not help.

“They didn’t know how to treat them (soldiers),” Jenny, who lives in the Israeli Ma’ale Adumim settlement, in the occupied West Bank, said. “They (soldiers) said the war was so different. They saw things that were never seen in Israel.”

When Mizrahi was on leave, he suffered from bouts of anger, sweating, insomnia and social withdrawal, his family said. He told his family that only those who were in Gaza with him could understand what he was going through.

Jenny wondered if her son killed someone and couldn’t handle it.

“He saw a lot of people die. Maybe he even killed someone. (But) we don’t teach our children to do things like this,” she said. “So, when he did this, something like this, maybe it was a shock for him.”

The former soldier has spoken publicly about the psychological trauma endured by Israeli troops in Gaza. In a testimony to the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in June, Zaken said that on many occasions, soldiers had to “run over terrorists, dead and alive, in the hundreds.”

“Everything squirts out,” he added.

Zaken says he can no longer eat meat, as it reminds him of the gruesome scenes he witnessed from his bulldozer in Gaza, and struggles to sleep at night, the sound of explosions ringing in his head.

He maintains that the vast majority of those he encountered were “terrorists.”

“The civilians we saw, we stopped and brought them water to drink, and we let them eat from our food,” he recalled, adding that even in such situations, Hamas fighters would shoot at them.

“So, there is no such thing as citizens,” he said, referring to the ability of Hamas fighters to blend with civilians. “This is terrorism.”

There was a “very strong collective attitude” of distrust among Israeli soldiers toward the Palestinians in Gaza, especially at the outset of the war, the medic said.

There was a notion that Gazans, including civilians, “are bad, that they support Hamas, that they help Hamas, that they were hiding ammunition,” the medic said.

In the field, however, some of these attitudes changed “when you actually see Gazan civilians in front of your eyes,” they said.

The IDF has said that it does all it can to minimize civilian casualties in Gaza, including by sending text messages, making phone calls, and dropping evacuation leaflets to warn civilians ahead of attacks.

Despite this, civilians in Gaza have been repeatedly killed in large numbers, including when sheltering in areas the military itself has designated as “safe zones.”

The mental health toll in Gaza is likely to be enormous. Relief groups and the UN have repeatedly highlighted the catastrophic mental health consequences of the war on civilians in Gaza, many of whom had already been scarred by a 17-year blockade and several wars with Israel. In an August report, the UN said the experiences of Gazans defy “traditional biomedical definitions” of PTSD, “given that there is no ‘post’ in Gaza’s context.”

After Mizrahi took his own life, videos and photos surfaced on social media of the reservist bulldozing homes and buildings in Gaza and posing in front of vandalized structures. Some of the images, which were purportedly posted on his now removed social media accounts, appeared in a documentary that he was interviewed for on Israel’s Channel 13.

His sister, Shir, said she saw a lot of comments on social media accusing Mizrahi of being “a murderer,” cursing at him and replying with unpleasant emojis.

“It was hard,” she said, adding that she tried her best to overlook it. “I know he had a good heart.”

Clearing dead people with debris

Ahron Bregman, a political scientist at King’s College London who served in the Israeli army for six years, including during the 1982 Lebanon War, said the Gaza war is unlike any other fought by Israel.

“It’s very long,” he said, and it is urban, which means soldiers fight among many people, “the vast majority of them are civilians.”

For many, the transition from the battlefield back to civilian life can be overwhelming, especially after urban warfare that involves the deaths of women and children, Bregman said.

“How can you put your children to bed when, you know, you saw children killed in Gaza?”

Despite Mizrahi’s PTSD, his family said he agreed to return to Gaza when he was called up again. Two days before he was meant to re-deploy, he killed himself.

In her home, Jenny has dedicated a room to memorialize her late son, with photos from his childhood and working in construction. Among the objects his mother has kept was the cap Mizrahi was wearing when he shot himself in the head, the bullet holes clearly visible.

Mizrahi’s family started speaking out about his death after the IDF did not grant him a military burial, saying he had not been “in active reserve duty.” They later reversed their decision.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that 10 soldiers took their own lives between October 7 and May 11, according to military data obtained by the newspaper.

“The suicide rate in the army is more or less stable in the last five or six years,” Bechor said, noting that it has in fact been falling over the past 10 years.

Even if the number of suicides is higher, he said, the ratio so far “is quite the same from the previous year because we have more soldiers.”

Still, more than a third of those removed from combat are found to have mental health issues. In a statement in August, the Israeli defense ministry’s rehabilitation division said that every month, more than 1,000 new wounded soldiers are removed from fighting for treatment, 35% of whom complain about their mental state, with 27% developing “a mental reaction or post-traumatic stress disorder.”

It added that by the end of the year, 14,000 wounded fighters will likely be admitted for treatment, approximately 40% of whom are expected to face mental health issues.

More than 500 people die by suicide in Israel and over 6,000 others attempt suicide every year, according to the country’s ministry of health, which notes that “there is under-reporting of approximately 23% in the numbers mentioned.”

In 2021, suicide was the leading cause of death among IDF soldiers, the Times of Israel reported, citing military data that showed at least 11 soldiers had taken their own lives that year.

Earlier this year, the ministry of health sought to “debunk rumors of rising suicide rates since October 7,” saying that the reported cases are “isolated incidents in the media and in social media.” Without providing numbers, the ministry said that there was a “decrease in suicide in Israel between October and December in comparison with the same months in recent years.”

Bregman, the Lebanon war veteran, said that PTSD and other mental health issues are now easier to talk about than in the 1970s and 1980s thanks to the diminishing stigma. Still, he said, the soldiers coming out of Gaza will “carry (their experiences) for the rest of their lives.”

Normalizing the abnormal

Bechor, the IDF psychologist, said that one of the ways the military helps traumatized troops resume their lives is to try to “normalize” what they went through, partly by reminding them of the horrors committed on October 7.

“This situation is not normal for human beings,” Bechor said, adding that when soldiers come back from the battlefield with PTSD symptoms, they ask: “How do I get back home after what I saw? How do I get to engage with my kids after what I saw?”

For the tens of thousands of Israelis who volunteered or were called up to fight, the war in Gaza was seen not only seen as an act of self-defense but as an existential battle. That notion was touted by top Israeli political and military leaders, as well as Israel’s international allies.

Netanyahu has described Hamas as “the new Nazis” and US President Joe Biden has said that the “ancient hatred of Jews” endorsed by the Nazis was “brought back to life” on October 7.

The external threats to their country unified many Israelis, putting on hold domestic political squabbling that had for months divided society. Meanwhile, the suffering of Palestinians has largely been absent from Israeli television screens, which are dominated by news about the hostages in Gaza.

After the Hamas attacks, polls showed that most Israelis supported the war in Gaza, and did not want their government to halt the fighting even while negotiating to release the kidnapped hostages. On the one-year anniversary of the October 7 attack, a survey published by the Israel Democracy Institute found that only 6% of Israelis think the war in Gaza should be stopped due to the “the great cost in human life.”

Some soldiers, however, couldn’t rationalize the horrors they had seen.

When he returned from Gaza, Mizrahi often told his family that he felt “invisible blood” coming out of him, his mother said.

Shir, his sister, blames the war for her brother’s death. “Because of the army, because of this war, my brother is not here,” she said. “Maybe he didn’t die from a bullet (in combat) or an RPG, but he died from an invisible bullet,” she added, referring to his psychological pain.