in Israel, general mobilization began to treat a traumatized population

“Every time I called, I was shaking.” In a small office in a clinic in east Tel Aviv, Sophie, a psychologist, remembers the days following the October 7 massacre. After this attack on an unprecedented scale in Israel, Meuhedet medical insurance set up an emergency telephone line.

“On the other end of the line, a woman tells me she comes from Sderot”the neighboring city of Gaza. “I held on to my chair”, Sophie whispers, miming the scene on her sky blue armchair. The woman on the phone took refuge in Jerusalem, without a house or clothes. “Not even a pair of pants for his children”, blurted the therapist.

“After a while, I took off my psychologist hat and asked her if she would allow a friend of mine to bring her some clothes.”

Sophie, psychologist

at franceinfo

Next to her, her colleague, Yoav Rodniki, agrees. “I told him: ‘I think I wasn’t professional’”Sophie continues. “And he said, ‘No, that’s the difference between a robot and a human.'” Like these two psychologists who work in the town of Giv’at Shmuel, in the suburbs of Tel Aviv, thousands of professionals, associations and individuals are trying to help, throughout Israel, the population to recover from the trauma. .

The country in post-traumatic stress

“Our country is very small and the massacre was of such magnitude that everyone here is close to what happened”, explains Daniel Shneidman*, director of the mental health department at Meuhedet. According to a study published in early December, 34% of people surveyed in Israel described symptoms corresponding to post-traumatic stress disorder after the October 7 attacks.

That day, in the early morning, all Israelis experienced or saw the images of the unprecedented Hamas attack unfolding before their eyes. This is the case of Gaëlle, a Franco-Israeli who lives in Tel Aviv and who lost her companion, Eitan Haddad, killed in the kibbutz of Be’eri. On October 7, she woke up to a message sent a little earlier: “Hello my dear. Are you OK ? There are a lot of alerts.” As the sirens begin to wail in Tel Aviv and the first videos circulate on social networks, Gaëlle’s anxiety rises.

“I send him a message on WhatsApp and all I see is a ‘V’. I try to call him, he doesn’t answer me”, says this high-tech project manager. Stress continues to increase as information about the massacre becomes clearer, but Gaëlle refrains from calling her companion back. “I was afraid it would be like the Bataclan. I had seen on the Netflix series that people had been killed by terrorists because their phones had rung in the pit.”

“I couldn’t breathe. I was alone at home. I called my sister to come. I opened the door to the apartment and lay down on the floor. I felt that I was going to fall.”

Gaëlle, resident of Tel Aviv

at franceinfo

The shock wave of these first images is worldwide. Even several thousand kilometers from the attack, Daniel Shneidman remembers his morning of October 7 precisely. “I looked at my phone and said, ‘That’s not possible.’ I thought they were talking about the Yom Kippur War, 50 years agosays the psychologist. When I understood, I gave my wife who was next to me five minutes. I knew that the moment I told him what was happening, everything was going to change.”

A documented massacre all the more striking

The photos and videos, captured by Hamas terrorists themselves or Israeli surveillance cameras, do serious psychological damage. “Everything that is visual is imprinted very quickly in the brain.explains Cathy Lawi, executive director of EmotionAid, an NGO that helps people overcome mental health trauma.

“A young man who was involved in editing videos of the massacre developed all the symptoms of post-traumatic syndrome.”

Cathy Lawi, Executive Director of EmotionAid

at franceinfo

And the researcher continues: “The images are imprinted on him. He can no longer sleep, no longer eat. We must support him so that he can gradually digest what he has seen.” To help as many people as possible, its NGO has developed tools in five steps, accessible to all, to manage your emotions in a crisis situation. “Just as there is physical first aid, there is also emotional first aid.”explains Laurence Tolub, director of the French-speaking department of EmotionAid.

In a few weeks, the NGO trained as many professionals as possible in contact with the population to disseminate these good practices. This is particularly the case with the educational team at Schneider Hospital in Petah Tikva. “A little girl who was in the hospital asked, some time after the attack: ‘I want a pot of red paint. When the terrorist comes, he will think I am dead’remembers Cathy Lawi. The teams must be able to manage this type of trauma.”

But confining ourselves to hospitals and health centers is not enough. The NGO has also trained sports coaches who support children in the south of the country. “They were very demanding, assures Cathy Lawi, behind her red glasses. One day, a child who was playing with a ball outside said in front of everyone: ‘My father was hit twice too’.”

Therapies on Instagram, WhatsApp and Zoom

As soon as her partner disappeared, Gaëlle was able to access psychologists via a WhatsApp service offered by her employer. “The person was there to support me and reduce my panic”explains the Franco-Israeli. “I wasn’t eating, I wasn’t sleeping… Going out scared me a lot because rockets were falling, and I was desperately looking for a place with a vault to be safe.”she continues, jumping at each horn sound in the streets of Tel Aviv.

After several days of endless anguish, Gaëlle learns that her companion, Eitan Hadad, died in the attack on the Be’eri kibbutz, after having fought for a long time against the terrorists in a medical office. That day, more than a hundred people lost their lives in this collectivist village. “Even in my worst nightmares, I wouldn’t have thought of this scenario.”says the forty-year-old.

Gaëlle then decides to leave Israel to join part of her family for a few weeks. “I will always remember the feeling when we arrived in France with my sister, we looked at each other and we exhaled”, she remembers. Despite the relief, the symptoms are still there, vivid. “I started doing post-traumatic stress sessions on Zoom, it was essential.” Remote monitoring that she still continues two months later, back in Israel.

In a few weeks, numerous initiatives to support traumatized people have spread throughout Israel. “Usually, bureaucracy makes everything take a long time. But here, it was very quick”welcomes Sophie, psychologist for Meuhedet medical insurance. “We did group therapy on Zoom, lives on Instagram… And even if we’re not always comfortable with these tools, it doesn’t matter.”

A question of survival for Israel

Online mobilization is also required at EmotionAid. “We are currently preparing a song with Israeli stars so that children know the five steps to take against stress and so that they can sing it when they are in shelters.”explains Laurence Tolub, also educational manager within the NGO. “We need to think outside the box. We must put the start-up nation to good use”comments his colleague, Cathy Lawi.

“We need different skills, to combine several areas. This requires humility.”

Laurence Tolub, director of the French-speaking department of EmotionAid

at franceinfo

Injury prevention has quickly become a national priority. “We have to rebuild an entire generation. AndThe first thing to know, to agree to ask for help, is that you can healinsists Cathy Lawi. We think it’s the end of everything, that it’s the apocalypse. No. I repeat: we can heal.”

While the scale of the trauma is historic, many Israelis have already faced terrible conflicts in the past. “When we’re asked, ‘What’s your secret weapon for overcoming this?’ I answer: ‘It’s a question of survival for us. There is no other choice'”explains Daniel Shneidman. “The intensity of the war reminds us that we are all Israelisadds Yoav Rodniki*, psychologist at Meuhedet medical insurance. This belonging will help with reconstruction.”

Sitting on a terrace in Tel Aviv, Gaëlle finishes recounting the horror her companion experienced on October 7 and the drama she has faced since. “It took away a part of me, a part of my soul”, assures this brunette forty-year-old, dressed in black. His anxieties returned with the return of fighting and sirens in Israel since the end of the truce. “I am traumatized. I know it,” she blurted, without hesitating on the words.

“At night I wake up because I feel like terrorists are coming into my house. I’m not afraid of dying, I’m afraid of how I’m going to die.”

Gaëlle, resident of Tel Aviv

at franceinfo

But after two months of isolation and anxiety about leaving her home, Gaëlle managed to go, for the first time, to “hostage square” in Tel Aviv. There, she was able to meet other bereaved families, survivors of Kibbutz Be’eri and relatives of Eitan Hadad. The young woman is determined to return there to be surrounded and try to heal. “It’s also psychological warfare and I don’t want to let them win.”

* The words of Yoav Rodniki and Daniel Shneidman were translated by Yaëlle Krief.