An IDF combat reservist, 28, was found dead Thursday in Switzerland Forest near Tiberias. The Military Police Criminal Investigation Division has opened an investigation, and its findings will be forwarded to the Military Advocate General’s Office.
The officer, a resident of Tiberias, served in the 99th Division operating in the Gaza Strip, and was part of a new unit in the division that participated in the fighting in recent weeks.
The soldier’s family has been notified. The IDF said it shares in the family’s grief and will continue to support them. This is the 17th apparent suicide case in the military so far this year.
Last week, after months of withholding the data, the IDF revealed its suicide statistics: there were 21 cases in 2024, 17 in 2023 and 14 in 2022. Until now, the military had insisted on waiting until the end of each year before releasing the figures.
Several IDF veterans disrupted a meeting of the Knesset’s National Security Committee on Wednesday, demanding urgent action to address soldier suicides.
One shouted at committee members: “Fifty-seven fighters commit suicide — no one here cares! Every day someone kills himself. Stop everything, my brothers are dying. It could be your child.”
He continued: “Soldiers who fall — right-wing, left-wing, Druze — we’re all the same. How are we invisible out there? If I didn’t have both my legs, would you look at me differently? You don’t understand what we go through. My partner, who was the most combat-ready soldier in the world, killed himself. What’s written on his grave? ‘Fell in the line of duty.’ But if a soldier takes a real bullet and dies after eight months in the hospital, it won’t say Shaare Zedek. He’s ‘fallen in battle’ because he’s a fighter. So we, the invisible ones who were wounded, are we not considered fallen in battle? It starts with this disregard, with the fact you don’t care. You sit here talking nonsense while soldiers are killing themselves.”
