Ex-cop with PTSD seriously hurt after self-immolating outside top defense official’s home

A former policeman suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder set himself on fire Friday morning outside the home of a senior official in the Defense Ministry’s rehabilitation department in Neve Ilan outside of Jerusalem, the Defense Ministry and emergency services said.

The man in his 40s was in serious condition and suffering from severe burns on his body when firefighters arrived on the scene. They worked to extinguish the flames in the home’s yard as paramedics treated him for his wounds, according to the Fire and Rescue Service.

Medics took the injured man to Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem neighborhood, where he was transferred to the intensive care unit for treatment. A Hadassah spokesperson said that he was sedated and put on a ventilator.

The man, a divorcee with three children, was recognized as disabled by the Defense Ministry’s rehabilitation department due to mild-to-moderate PTSD alongside a physical disability, according to Army Radio.

For the past two years, he had reportedly demanded that the department recognize him as fully disabled, which would entitle him to housing.

The Ynet news site reported that he had been homeless and sleeping outside the defense official’s home for several months. Efforts to find him assistance and housing had failed.

According to the Defense Ministry, the man was recognized by the ministry’s rehabilitation department in 2013. He apparently suffered a debilitating head injury that year, after a mentally unstable man threw a rock at him while he was on patrol, Army Radio reported.

The War Wounded Forum, representing soldiers suffering physically and mentally from combat, called the policeman’s self-immolation a “wake-up call for all of us.”

“Another comrade has found himself facing a system that does not respond and is broken,” the forum said. “This event is a sharp wake-up call for all of us: the war may have ended on the battlefield, but for many of our male and female fighters, it has not ended within their souls.”

The forum called on the government to take “full responsibility, through its actions, not bureaucracy.”

The issue has taken on increased urgency in the wake of the current Gaza war, with tens of thousands of soldiers having seen prolonged combat. An army report from July 2025 noted 9,000 requests for recognition of “psychological suffering” submitted to military health services since the war began.

His case is the latest to draw attention to the plight of soldiers and police who have been mentally and physically scarred by their service.

It was one of several self-immolation attempts in protest of the Defense Ministry’s rehabilitation department, which veterans and their advocates claim is neglectful and exceedingly difficult to navigate.

The issue attracted national attention in April 2021, when IDF veteran Itzik Saidyan set himself on fire outside a rehabilitation center in Petah Tikvah. After recovering from the severe burns, he said that he self-immolated to protest alleged neglect by authorities, after struggling for years to receive proper care for PTSD.

In 2023, an IDF veteran attempted to set fire to the department’s offices in Tiberias by pouring flammable liquid near the entrance, after his application to be recognized as a wounded veteran was rejected.

Later that year, 33-year-old Bar Kalaf, another veteran, set himself on fire at his home in Netanya after his application to be recognized as suffering from PTSD was denied by the department.