The suffering and destruction in the Gaza Strip is almost unbearable, not even for Israeli soldiers. In the Einot Bar therapy center they are supposed to process what they have experienced – and continue their work after a short stay.
Jacob lies in the 35 degree water with his arms spread out and his eyes closed. A therapist gently pulls him through the pool. She puts her hand on her forehead and eyes. Jacob should let himself go. Not an easy task for the Israeli soldier.
He fought in Gaza for four months and came straight from the deployment – together with his unit to the Einot Bar therapy center, near the border in the Negev Desert.
Jacob opens his eyes: “Weightlessness, freedom, peace, calm – after four months of madness and fear. It’s the first time that I feel a connection to people again: love, care. I feel safe here, like a little one Child hugging mother. It’s the feeling of being at home.”
Warm water for the soul
Because he was away for so long, he missed important developments in his little daughter. Jacob says he feels emotionally separated from his family. His paratrooper battalion became his new family.
Many soldiers feel this way, says Einat Cohen. She runs the therapy center. They find it difficult to allow closeness: “If we put a soul that has experienced trauma and is out of balance in 35 degree warm water, it has a balancing effect.” The soldiers only see therapists for a few hours and often have to return to Gaza quickly.
“Here we begin a process that is biological, energetic and spiritual,” explains Cohen. “A process that releases a trauma, a tragedy that has been experienced, from the body. When they are in the warm water, it begins to release. Sometimes they cry or get frightened.”
Therapist Einat Cohen doing water therapy with an Israeli soldier.
A trauma emergency room
Some soldiers from the paratrooper battalion sit together at a piano. They want to process what they have experienced together and can do relaxation exercises, conversation and water therapy. It’s about treating traumatic experiences early, before they later turn into post-traumatic stress disorder.
A new approach, says therapist Cohen. She believes in addressing crises immediately, before they become entrenched. “We’ve become something of a trauma emergency room since October 7th. We’ve never seen people with symptoms like this, in such a state of shock. It’s never happened here before.”
First survivors came from the kibbutzim. Then relatives of the hostages, now soldiers. Eyal is also there for therapy; he is a sergeant and reservist. After October 7, he helped retrieve the dead from Kibbutz Kfar Aza.
“We carried out the dead and collected ammunition that the terrorists left behind. Unexploded bombs. That was very difficult. Nothing I was ever prepared for. Even in Gaza, the smell of decay is terrible. I was next to a field the other day and there was it smelled similar. That’s when the whole memory came flooding back.”
“The head wins over the body”
In the garden overlooking the Negev Desert towards Gaza, a group of soldiers in swimming trunks are doing warm-up exercises. You step in place, pushing your arms back and forth. “Oh my God. The head wins over the body,” says Simon. The soldier immediately climbs into a bathtub filled with ice-cold water and ice cubes.
He has difficulty concentrating. In his head he is still in Gaza: “It’s like in a movie there. Everything is broken, nothing is standing anymore. The houses we drive past, one is missing every day. You don’t see any people, only animals left behind. One night we are in a house. There was a donkey standing there in the dark. He didn’t want to eat anything, he was so scared, it was so sad.”
Ice bathing is part of the therapy at Einot Bar.
He has crazy dreams. Actually it only works in a kind of automatic mode, says Simon and climbs into the ice tub. A therapist explains to the soldier how to breathe.
Simon closes his eyes and goes underwater. The cold shock allowed him to let go, he says. Then suddenly he becomes completely cool again. It’s easier than it looks. It’s ok. At least he didn’t have to think about the fact that he would soon have to go back to the Gaza Strip.
Bettina Meier, ARD Tel Aviv, tagesschau, February 13, 2024 9:17 a.m