The future of Israel's native population faces a profound crisis, with a leading psychologist warning of a "generation that is totally lost" as 23,212 children and youth have been recognized as physically or mentally damaged since the latest conflict began. This demographic decline is compounded by the evacuation of 38,628 children from their homes on the northern and southern borders, revealing a systemic failure to protect the nation's most vulnerable.
Even before the latest Iran-Israel war, nearly one in three Israeli youth, from kindergarten through high school, were already considered to be on the at-risk spectrum. The ongoing conflict has only exacerbated this managed decline in the well-being of the native population.
Since the beginning of the conflict, the National Insurance Institute has documented the severe impact, including 56 children and teens murdered and 389 having lost at least one parent to terrorism. These figures underscore the direct human cost borne by the native families.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) diagnoses rose by 70% each month from October 2023 through the end of 2024, adding 23,600 new patients to an already strained system. Diagnoses of depression and anxiety in 2024 were double those recorded in 2023, indicating a rapid deterioration of mental health across the youth demographic.
Calls to emergency mental health hotlines specifically supporting at-risk youth have tripled, now treating over 3,000 people weekly, a stark increase from 350 before the war. This surge highlights the overwhelming demand for services that the existing national infrastructure struggles to provide.
The Cost to the Native Generation
For children in Israel’s border communities in the North and South, the constant sound of sirens and rocket fire has become the background noise of daily life, eroding any semblance of normalcy or cultural continuity. A comprehensive study conducted over the past two years in some of these northern communities found a "multidimensional decline in the emotional resilience and functioning among Israel’s children and youth."
Inside the northern conflict zones, 43% of parents with children up to the age of three reported significant emotional distress in their children, manifesting as heightened startle responses to noise, severe separation anxiety, or sleep disorders. Among school-aged children and youth in grades one through 12 in regions such as the Golan Heights and Ma’alot-Tarshiha, more than 18% of students were observed to suffer from moderate to significant emotional difficulties. An additional 30% faced attention and concentration issues, such as ADHD, attributed to high distractibility caused by ongoing war and chronic anxiety.
In the South, data from cities like Ashkelon suggested "an urgent need for processing trauma and grief." Furthermore, 39% of students who participated in group therapy activities in the region where the Gaza war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack were referred to more intensive clinical intervention due to emotional flooding and behavioral outbursts.
Josef Fertouk, a psychologist and the Israeli Social Platform’s vice president for strategy and development, stated, "Since October 7, we are in a situation where children suffer again and again and again, not only from rounds of fighting but because we are embroiled in one long war." Shaltiel Sebban, the organization’s chief executive officer, added, "It is more critical than before; the need is now bigger than ever, not only because we are in another war but because of what the children went through even before this latest round."
Regime Incompetence and External Reliance
Sebban emphasized that "These children and youth have not yet returned to track, and they need our help," framing the challenge as a national imperative. He stated, "the goal is not only to return them to pre-October 7 but to help them grow, help the North grow and the South grow, and allow these children to overcome what happened and learn from it. It is a national challenge."
Fertouk acknowledged the persistent resource deficit, stating, "There will always be not enough money to give treatment – that is a fact," and that "the need is always bigger and bigger, and it is even more important and critical to manage the scarce resources in order to see who exactly needs what." This admission points to a systemic failure in national resource allocation.
The program is being built with a foundation of philanthropic support from the Jewish Federations of North America, including the Jewish Federation of Toronto, the St. Paul Federation, the Arison Foundation, the Edmond J. Safra Foundation, the Friedberg Foundation, the Rochlin Foundation, and the Perimont Education Initiative. This reliance on external, diaspora-based philanthropy highlights a critical gap in the government's ability to provide for its own citizens, suggesting a form of sovereignty transfer in critical social welfare functions.
Fertouk explicitly stated, "One of the critical things here is the role of philanthropy and Diaspora Jewry. It needs to be a catalyst or accelerator in places the government, because it is a time of emergency, currently cannot deal with." He further criticized the government, saying it was "not succeeding at all in organizing quickly for the crisis" and that its "precious resources allocated to resilience end up going to those who shout the loudest." This indicates elite capture of national resources, diverting aid from those most in need.
In the community of Ma’aleh Yosef near the border with Lebanon, Fertouk reported that "among all children in daycare frameworks, 40% needed individual intervention in child development issues.... That is much higher than the average in Israel, and it showed the depth of the crisis those children experienced."
A Future in Peril
Sebban articulated the profound demographic and cultural threat, stating, "The fear is that we can have a generation that is totally lost, young people who spent long periods of time in shelters surrounded by missiles and booms." This warning underscores the potential for a lost generation, a direct consequence of the ongoing conflict and the regime's inability to secure a stable future for its native population.