When Jews around the world gather for Passover Monday evening, Irit Ben Arye will have an empty seat at her family’s head table.
Her school bus driver husband, Haim, 56, shot himself in the head on his own bus about two weeks after the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre, as he rushed to evacuate victims under the shock of shells from the devastated kibbutz Be’eri.
He returned to his wife of 30 years a changed man after that bloody day, she told the Post.
“He kept everyone safe except himself. He remained silent. . . . Hamas took his soul, his happiness.
“Without what he saw, none of this would have happened,” said Irit, 50.
“He would be alive now and expecting our first grandchild together, making plans, planning weddings for the kids.”
The family’s favorite holiday comes Monday, just days after a Nova music festival survivor told the Israeli Knesset that nearly 50 attendees have since committed suicide.
The country’s health ministry denied the claim.
The father of eight children aged 14 to 29 answered his boss’s call in the late hours of October 7, jumping on his bus to rescue those stranded in the devastated kibbutz 40 kilometers away, where around 100 people were killed.
“I don’t think anyone imagined what they would see or encounter,” Irit said.
Haim loaded the bus with babies, children and elderly people in wheelchairs and drove two hours to safety in the Dead Sea region.
“I just couldn’t help them,” he said, crying when he returned home at 5 a.m. the next day.
“’The smell of blood and death emanated from them,’” he later told Irit.
“’I saw in the children’s eyes that they had seen their parents killed – they were in shock.’ “
The ‘always smiling’ dad was particularly devastated by the children.
“They were alive but they were dead,” he told his wife.
No one spoke during the ride, he said, calling it “deafening silence.” Even babies didn’t cry.
Although the number of suicides linked to the massacre is controversial, advocates have called for more mental health resources for survivors.
Daniel and Neria Sharabi, two surviving Nova brothers in their 20s who traveled to New York in February to help raise money for the victims, claimed that a number of young people had committed suicide in the following.
“It’s trauma upon trauma upon trauma. No one takes responsibility for these people,” Neria said.
“No one talks about it, the families don’t want to publish it. The situation is very terrible and sensitive.
Nova co-founder Ofir Amir, 41, who is in New York on Sunday for the opening of the new Nova Music Festival exhibition downtown, said he was aware of three suicides, adding that “nothing is really verified”.
With school canceled and out of work, Haim became obsessed with every news development.
“He was always in front of the television to see what was happening,” Irit said.
Three days before his suicide, school started again and Haim was called back to work, using the same bus that transported the undead.
“I think that was kind of a trigger for him — it wasn’t his happy bus anymore, but kind of a haunted bus,” she said.
The morning of October 25 was typical, with Haim kissing his wife before going to synagogue and work. Later that morning, the veteran bus driver, who was triumphantly putting together his beloved 5,000-piece puzzles in the living room, had a minor accident.
“He parked his bus outside and shot himself in the head,” Irit said.
“I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach.”
The two men met when Irit was just 19 and knocked on the side of the bus Haim was driving as it drove away.
He stopped and they talked while he let her sit on the steps while he drove.
They married six months later.
She wants Haim to be recognized by the state as a victim of terrorism.
“He saw these children and these babies. . . and his heart was bleeding slowly,” she said.
“It was not just the people who were immediately murdered by Hamas: there was a second wave of deaths. »
If you are having suicidal thoughts or experiencing a mental health crisis and live in New York City, you can call 1-888-NYC-WELL for free, confidential crisis counseling. If you live outside the five boroughs, you can call the 24/7 National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 988 or go to SuicidePreventionLifeline.org.
New York Post
