'It is critical that we address the emotional trauma that we have experienced since October 7'

Speaking at the Jerusalem Post Miami Summit, Dr. Lucian Tatsa-Laur, head of the new Trauma Rehabilitation Center at Samson Assuta Ashdod University Hospital,  discussed the importance of confronting the traumas of the war. “In order to rebuild resilience and for the State of Israel and the Jewish people, it is urgent and critical that we address the emotional trauma that we have experienced since October 7,” he said.

Tatsa-Laur, an experienced psychiatrist who headed the Israel Defense Forces’ Department of Mental Health, recalled that fateful morning. When he learned of the attack, he immediately called his officer in Southern Command, who lives in the Gaza communities. “I spoke to her, and she said, 'I cannot talk. I'm in the safe room with my small children. My husband is outside fighting Hamas terrorists.’ That was the first minute I understood that we were dealing with something which was completely different, because as mental health officers or professionals, we usually observe people who have been traumatized. We are not part of that thing. At that moment, I realized  that we were part of what happened there.”

Highlighting the importance of maintaining mental health, he pointed out that on that day, he received calls from IDF commanders requesting that mental health officers be sent to help the soldiers under their command. “They were able to use them in order to build up their units and go on fighting. This was a very important thing that we learned on that day. We now have mental health officers who go back into Gaza, and they are there with the commanders, and support them, and they enable them to build resilience so they can keep on doing their work.”

Tatsa-Laur added that people who experience traumatic events are stripped of their identity, and as a result, lose their ability to trust and believe in themselves. Restoring identity must be restructured, he said, through embedded mental health officers in the IDF. “You need somebody who is on the ground, and hospitals like Assuta Ashdod that were there on the ground before the war did an excellent job in saving a lot of lives. They are the hubs upon which resilience can be built.”

Yael Yativ, Senior Director of Development and CEO of Friends of Assuta Ashdod Associations t, who also participated in the discussion, said that Assuta Ashdod is a Zionistic game-changer in public medical care in southern Israel, and added that “we are determined and adamant that the residents of the periphery of southern Israel deserve the exact quality of services as the people do in the center of Israel. Rehabilitation and mental health are scarce throughout  Israel. But in the South, they are especially scarce.  This is why we need places like Assuta Ashdod to be able to reach out in the community and make a change.”