Shirel Golan, age 22, should not have died. She survived the horrific massacre at the Nova music festival on October 7, but she could not survive the trauma that followed.
Her tragic death last week serves as a glaring warning sign to the nation – we are abandoning our war victims.Shirel’s death must serve as a wake-up call to both the government and the general public.
Her painful suicide reflects the frightening reality we live in, where those suffering from the mental wounds of war are left without adequate support from the state until they find themselves alone at the edge of the abyss.
Shirel’s story is the story of far too many. The National Insurance Institute (NII) reports that at least 82,000 civilians may be recognized as terror victims – almost ten times the total number recognized since the state’s establishment, approximately 10,000.
This is an unprecedented scope of casualties that requires rethinking the entire treatment and support system.
Although the NII has done its best over the past year to simplify existing mechanisms, the state has yet to modify the existing legal framework, which was designed to handle only dozens of victims per year.
Under the current system, victims must go through a recognition process, followed by another complex and exhausting process of filing individual disability claims.
Instead of providing immediate assistance to those affected, they must navigate a difficult and tedious bureaucratic path while suffering from deep psychological trauma.
Many are forced to wait for months, meanwhile remaining without adequate treatment.
A struggling system
The system struggles to cope with the vast number of applicants, and compensation arrives too late for many.
These long delays and the complicated legal processes are among the factors leaving many mental health victims without support during the most critical time.
Many victims express great frustration with the bureaucratic mechanism, which requires them to invest significant time and energy in submitting requests and obtaining approvals.
More severely, many groups of victims are not eligible for recognition under existing law: adult siblings of murder victims; relatives of survivors who were injured; residents of communities who were not in their homes on October 7; people who were digitally exposed to the kidnapping or murder of a close person; and many others.All remain outside the circle of those eligible for assistance, despite also suffering from severe trauma.
A public committee established at the initiative of the Finance Ministry recommended temporary solutions, but these fall far short of meeting the needs.
Its recommendations, yet to be implemented, offer only a partial response within a budget framework of one billion shekels in total and do not solve the system’s structural problems.
Representatives of affected families have already expressed their opposition, claiming they are “mockery of the poor.”
A change must be made
To save lives, a fundamental change in thinking is required – moving from a mechanism based on providing individual damage to one that recognizes broad categories of victims.
The eligibility circle must be expanded, recognition processes simplified, and immediate access to mental health treatment and rehabilitation ensured to match the enormous scope of casualties and complexity of mental injuries.
Such a solution could even be more economical than the existing mechanism, which requires individual examination of each case.
The government must urgently promote legislative amendments to adapt the mechanism to current circumstances.
The regulation should ensure that anyone affected receives recognition as a terror victim, meaning a significant expansion in the scope of recognized victims.
Recognition and treatment processes must be simplified and shortened, and the scope of mental health and rehabilitation treatments provided to victims increased to match the needs.
Additionally, the government must ensure cooperation between various government bodies – the Ministry of Health, National Insurance Institute, Ministry of Welfare and Education, as well as local authorities – to ensure comprehensive response delivery.
Only through a coordinated system, managed efficiently and quickly, can we provide victims with the mental and physical support they so desperately need.
Each day that passes without proper treatment deepens the injury and increases the risk of additional loss of life. The responsibility for rehabilitating war victims belongs to us all.
This is not just a moral duty but also a national interest of the highest order. Shirel Golan’s death must be the final warning sign.
If we don’t know how to treat the wounds of the past, we cannot build a better future.
The writer is the CEO of 121 – Israel’s leading NGO for advancing public policies for social change.