Female IDF soldiers' trauma overlooked despite historic mobilization: 'We need to be seen'

Yet even amid the largest mobilization of women since Israel’s establishment in 1948, the experiences of female soldiers – those who fought, evacuated, treated, and bore witness alongside the men – remain disturbingly absent from the narrative.

Shir Argaman, 29, who spent the first three months of the war in reserve duty commanding a unit responsible for retrieving dead bodies – which included Israeli civilians, soldiers, and even Hamas terrorists – is a case in point.

“I saw over a thousand bodies,” she recalled in a recent interview. “It’s impossible to go back to being the same woman I was on October 6.”

On the day of the attack, she had been preparing for a job interview the following morning, but within hours she found herself leading male drivers into the ruins of burnt homes and loading body bags.

Her breaking point arrived quietly, almost absurdly. Returning to base after collecting bodies of Hamas terrorists, she recounted receiving a simple phone call from her mother about a family dinner.

“I screamed so loud, I woke my soldiers up,” she said, adding that she had never raised her voice at her mother before. “I hung up the phone and said to myself, ‘I’m not letting this happen again.’”

Mika Oz, 28, a paramedic and optometry student who turned combat paramedic shortly before October 7, told a similar story.

“I realized something wasn’t right,” she said.

It was only when she met another female medic experiencing similar symptoms of hypervigilance, irritability, and “every street-cleaning truck sounding like helicopter fire,” that Oz realized that what she was experiencing was “not normal but was because of the trauma.”

Both women emphasized that the trauma they experienced didn’t stop them from continuing to serve; however, it did place an added strain on them.

“I was scared… I knew a wave of suicides was coming and tried to stay in control. I have a mission – I’m a commander,” Argaman said.

She described how she had to force herself to stay strong, monitoring her emotions daily and adopting various methods to cope with the stress and trauma she was experiencing.

For Oz, who describes herself as a “petite woman” serving alongside men, she had “a feeling that they don’t understand; and if you [as a woman] ask for help, then you are [only seen as] that woman who asks for help.”

More than 20% of combat soldiers in this war are women. While many have insisted on continuing their jobs – standing beside their male counterparts in lifting dead bodies, carrying stretchers, and even entering into combat zones inside Gaza and Lebanon – the psychological injuries they have suffered sometimes look quite different from those of the men.

She said she has identified a uniquely gender-related stigma.

“If a man breaks down today, there’s awareness. They’ll give him a glass of water. But if a woman breaks down, they’ll say she’s hysterical or dramatic. You’re immediately put in that box,” she said. “It’s harder for people to understand a woman with PTSD than PTSD itself.”

Peled hears echoes of her own past in the women she treats.

“What, you have PTSD from the army? What could you possibly have done?” she said, repeating the question some female soldiers still encounter today.

Many prefer the term “combat stress reaction,” telling her, “If I say ‘PTSD,’ people will assume sexual assault or an accident.”

Another difference, noted Peled, was that “men with PTSD will often explode outward or isolate. Women don’t or can’t do that – they fear others’ reactions. So, the triggers often turn inward.”

Argaman said she recognized that pattern, too.

“People look at a woman who admits to trauma and think, ‘She’s just sensitive.’ If we cry, it’s ‘normal’ – it’s not trauma,” she said. “But we were an inseparable part of this war – frontlines and home front. The biggest mobilization of women in Israel’s history. We need to be seen.”

While many of the women say their symptoms are not visible or recognized, a project called Women Tell War run by the Eden Association – which for the past three decades has provided trauma support for women and girls in the Gaza border region – aims to change the reality by collecting the testimonies of female soldiers who served on or after October 7.

For many of those participating in the project – women from the frontlines and from communities attacked on that tragic day – this is the first time they have spoken.

So far, more than 80 testimonies have been collected, and some have been transformed into a special art exhibition titled Women Tell War: Voices from the Front.

“The mere acknowledgment that they have a story, and that their story is important and deserves to be heard, opened a door to healing and to continued treatment,” Adi Weiss, director of the project, told the Report.

“I hadn’t realized how much validity and recognition the documentation provides, and how meaningful it is to the process,” said Ronit Shoval, CEO and founder of Eden. “We are currently analyzing the testimonies, aiming to identify recurring themes and to better understand how women experience military trauma, so that we can later develop more tailored and accurate therapeutic approaches.”

Time without treatment deepens wounds – a truth every trauma professional repeats with urgency. Civil society has risen to fill the gaps, as it has in so many torn corners of Israeli life since the war began. But only recently has the Knesset begun to have committee discussions about the mental health crisis faced by female soldiers.

With the Joint Committee for the Defense Budget preparing critical decisions for 2025, the question remains whether the female fighters of this war – those who served, who saved, and carried literal and metaphorical weight – will finally be seen and heard.■