Healing and hope: Belev Echad helps IDF soldiers recover from trauma

HEALTH AFFAIRS: The organization has provided nearly 2,000 PTSD treatments for soldiers. But outside of that, the soldiers act as a support system for each other.

By CORINNE BAUM FEBRUARY 28, 2025 22:48

‘SHIRA ALWAYS told me ‘take care of yourself!’ Capt. Noam Assaraf, who lost his girlfriend in a Beersheba terrorist attack, speaks at a Belev Echad donor event in Miami earlier this month. (photo credit: CORINNE BAUM)

Noam Assaraf, 21, a combat veteran of IDF operations in Gaza and Lebanon, used to think that he’d die before his girlfriend, Sgt. Shira Suslik.

“Shira always told me ‘take care of yourself! I’m just in Beersheba, nothing is gonna happen [to me].’“And then it happened to her. It needed to happen to me, not her.”

The pair had been going out for about half a year when Suslik was murdered in the October 2024 terrorist shooting at the Beersheba Central Bus Station.

Assaraf was on his way to see her, after he’d just been released from Gaza for the first time in 50 days.

“I called her and told her I’d see her in five minutes,” he told The Jerusalem Post. “I saw her from the window, but I told her I was gonna do the circle to go through security.”

The aftermath of the terror attack in Beersheba. (credit: Via Maariv)

As Assaraf made his way off the bus to get to the other side of the station, he heard gunshots from inside. He shot through a window and jumped through to assist, only to see his girlfriend get shot in the leg.

“The first shot was in the leg, and after [the terrorist] saw her on the ground, he just put his leg above her chest and shot two bullets from point-blank range.”

Assaraf shot the terrorist in the chest, then in the head. He then began CPR in an attempt to save his girlfriend’s life until paramedics were able to take over.

He knows now that he heard her last breaths, but at the time he was too high on adrenaline to realize it.“I didn’t see her for 50 days, I told her I’d see her in five minutes, and then I never saw her again,” he said.

He followed the paramedics to Soroka Medical Center in hope that he’d be able to meet his girlfriend when she woke up. He waited for hours in the emergency room with two bullet wounds and 10 shards of glass in his back, before he was taken to a back room.

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At that point, he knew that his girl was gone.

Loss from terror 

“Yeah, she was a fighter in Israel, but she was my princess. Losing a girlfriend is something different; it’s maybe harder than a friend you lose. A friend is a man; he knows he has a chance to die. What’s your chance to die in Beersheba?”

Assaraf struggles with completing daily tasks and has suffered from depression and PTSD because of that traumatic incident as well as his experiences on October 7.

While his experience is unique, his condition isn’t. He’s one of over 50,000 wounded soldiers in Israel, 5,721 of whom were wounded in the Israel-Hamas War.

Belev Achad organization 

Since the start of the war, Belev Echad, an international nonprofit that works to restore the lives of wounded IDF soldiers, has assisted some 1,000 of them a week.

The organization provides medical and mental health treatments to soldiers at its primary rehab location in Kiryat Ono. However, it also offers financial, emotional, and legal support for Israel’s heroes.

“We’re an organization that helps wounded soldiers, period,” said Belev Echad delegation manager and event coordinator Lauren Sobel. “We have many different types of doctors that come through every single day, actually, where these guys can have these appointments, treatments, etc., free of cost. If we don’t have something somebody needs, then we will quite literally build it from the ground up for them.”

The organization says that most of its employees at the house in Kiryat Ono are wounded soldiers, meaning the care for incoming soldiers is given by people who get it.

“The second that somebody steps into the house, they’re automatically greeted by somebody who understands them,” Sobel said.

The organization offers more than mental health support, however. It offers community building events and activities such as surfing, soccer matches, volleyball games, and a mixed martial arts program.

Additionally, it offers the soldiers a chance to go on an all-expenses-paid vacation as part of their recovery process. Belev Echad takes the soldiers to either Miami, New York, or Los Angeles to let off some steam and meet members of the local Jewish community. The trips strengthen the bond between the soldiers, as well as US-Israel relations.

ASSARAF WAS one of eight soldiers selected to travel to Miami on one of these delegation trips. He said he originally wasn’t looking forward to the trip, but he thinks now that sharing his story with others has helped him.

“I wasn’t happy or excited. I thought: Now isn’t the time for a vacation. There’s a war,” he said. “But when I went to Belev Echad and told the other guys my story, that helped me.”

Soldiers act as a system of support 

The organization has provided nearly 2,000 PTSD treatments for soldiers. But outside of that, the soldiers act as a support system for each other.

Even on this Miami trip, the eight boys cracked jokes about their situation that only they can fully understand. They were one little unit, and they just seemed lighter around each other.

For Assaraf, this trip meant he had people who just get it without him having to go into detail.

“When I talk about it, I just go back to the situation,” he said. “They [fellow wounded soldiers with Belev Echad] know everything that’s on my mind. Even if we have a different experience, it’s almost the same.”