An Israel Defense Forces reservist was found dead Sunday night in his home in southern Israel, the military announced on Monday.
Hebrew media outlets identified the soldier as Ariel Meir Taman, who had previously served in the IDF’s Military Rabbinate, where his duties included identifying bodies after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack.
Several outlets have reported the incident as a suspected suicide.
The Military Police opened an investigation into the circumstances of his death. The findings will be transferred to the Military Prosecutor’s Office for review, the IDF said.
Taman hailed from an ultra-Orthodox family, and was married and a father to four children, according to the Ynet news site.
Taman’s sister Bat El told Ynet her brother was “the purest, most thoughtful, considerate, inclusive boy. The best father in the world. The most perfect husband in the world. One of a kind.”
“His job in the army was his mission in life. He breathed what he did, and he did it with full respect to the memory of the soldiers who fell,” she added.
According to Bat El, Ariel did not share that he was going through hardship, nor did he show outward signs of mental distress.
“He was the one who strengthened us, he was the one who lifted us up. I was so broken every morning with each ‘permitted for publication,’” she said, referring to the words at the start of each Hebrew news report announcing that a soldier has been killed. “He would always say how holy they were, and that this was their mission in life.”
An acquaintance of Taman’s told Hebrew media that the late reservist “saw very difficult things in his position in recent years.”
The acquaintance eulogized Taman: “He was everything — a man of giving and kindness. He gave of himself to everyone, always put others before himself.״
In the wake of a recent string of suicides among both active-duty and reserve soldiers, Walla News reported Monday that the Jerusalem Institute of Justice appealed to Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman MK Boaz Bismuth to urgently convene a discussion on the issue.
Taman’s death marks yet another case in a concerning trend that has reignited debate over mental health in the military amid the ongoing psychological toll of the war.
The number of suspected suicides among Israeli soldiers had risen sharply since the Hamas-led assault on October 7, according to data published by the IDF.
The IDF does not publish suicide statistics more than once a year, so it is hard to know with certainty how many soldiers have died by suicide this year, but Channel 12 reported the number as 17 as of Monday, alongside news of Taman’s death.
In 2024, 21 soldiers died by suicide, and in 2023, 17 did, including seven after the October 7 attack. These marked the highest numbers since 2011. The majority were reservists.
The military has said that given how many soldiers have been mobilized for combat amid the war, the number of suicides in proportion to the number of fighters, rather than as an absolute number, has not risen dramatically.
The IDF has also noted that thousands of reservist soldiers have reportedly stepped back from combat roles due to mental stress. However, the military did not release additional data or elaborate further on the trend.