Knesset immigration committee examines mental health challenges faced by IDF’s lone soldiers

By Stav Levaton

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6 August 2025, 2:49 pm

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Stav Levaton is a military reporter for The Times of Israel

The Knesset’s Committee for Immigration, Absorption, and Diaspora Affairs, headed by Labor MK Gilad Kariv, convened today to examine the mental health challenges faced by lone soldiers — IDF service members without familial support — and explore ways to strengthen the assistance they receive.

“When we speak about lone soldiers, there are unique challenges,” Kariv said during the session.

The committee reviewed a series of proposals aimed at expanding support, including increased leave for personal needs, additional housing assistance, improved access to mental health care for both active and discharged soldiers — in Israel and abroad — and streamlined family visit arrangements during wartime. Officials also presented advanced-stage plans for a national memorial to honor fallen lone soldiers, to be built in Defenders’ Forest near Modiin.

The meeting came after Cpl. Dan Phillipson, a lone soldier from Norway, succumbed to wounds sustained in an apparent suicide last month.

According to the IDF, approximately 7,000 lone soldiers are currently serving in the military. While support systems such as financial grants and mental health resources predate the war, the need has intensified since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack. According to the IDF, some 4,000 discharged soldiers — both lone and non-lone soldiers — have received psychological assistance since the war began, a dramatic rise from the pre-war annual average of 270.

The Defense Ministry’s Amit Program, which offers therapy and counseling to thousands of soldiers coping with psychological wounds, now includes around 300 lone soldiers. Meanwhile, the Immigration and Absorption Ministry has stepped up its services throughout the war — boosting aid for immigrant reservist students, increasing voucher amounts, and providing mental health services in multiple languages.

The next committee meeting is scheduled for September, and Kariv urges all relevant agencies to continue advancing support efforts.