Israel Trauma Coalition

The ITC is a registered umbrella nonprofit organization of corporations and individuals working in resilience, psychotrauma, and crisis preparedness.[1] Its stated goal is to develop a continuum of psychotrauma-care services and models for crisis response and preparedness, working across the full crisis-management timeline — preparedness, emergency response, and recovery.[2][1]

Its approach is holistic and collaborative, combining accumulated expertise with knowledge from crisis-response organizations and government bodies.[2] It works with Arab and ultra-Orthodox communities, new immigrants, refugees, people with disabilities, government bodies, local authorities, professional teams, and private-sector organizations.[2] Its routine-period work includes studying and researching its fields, refining methods, and developing models based on Israeli experience, which it disseminates through training programs intended to strengthen resilience at organizational and community levels.[2]

Since 2002, the ITC has served as a recipient and channel for allocating emergency funds in Israel alongside the Jewish Agency for Israel and the Joint Distribution Committee, placing it within the wider philanthropic crisis-response architecture of world Jewry.[7] It serves as an advisory body to the United Nations and works with the Council of Europe, the World Bank, and Jewish federations internationally.[5] An inter-ministry committee — including representatives of government ministries, the Prime Minister's Office, the National Insurance Institute, and the National Emergency Management Authority — oversees the resilience-center network within which the ITC operates.[8]

Funding for the coalition grew substantially after October 7, 2023. A January 2025 interview with CEO Talia Levanon described a pre-October 7 budget of NIS 30 million, of which 70 percent came from government payments for services and the remainder from donations; at the time of the interview she gave the coalition's budget as NIS 140 million, including NIS 110 million allocated for resilience centers.[9] The coalition also receives contributions from Jewish organizations in the United States and government financing for the centers it operates.[10]

The ITC emerged from a recognized failure of Israel's fragmented trauma-response system during the Second Intifada. At that time, state trauma teams were available at incident scenes and emergency rooms for approximately six hours following an attack, and municipal welfare personnel for about 48 hours after large-scale incidents; subsequent National Insurance Institute services applied only to people who met its eligibility criteria.[6] Nongovernmental organizations also provided assistance, but they typically worked independently and reacted to each crisis in isolation, without coordination or continuity.[6] The need for an integrated approach that could extend support beyond this short-term, siloed response was the founding rationale for the coalition.

UJA-Federation of New York provided the Israel Center for the Treatment of Psychotrauma with $200,000 in early 2001 to establish a national trauma-treatment network.[6] Seven organizations formed the original coalition: Selah, ERAN, Amcha, Beit Loewenstein, the Community Stress Prevention Center, the Israel Center for the Treatment of Psychotrauma, and Natal.[6] One grant letter captured the collaborative obligation attached to the funding: "As a recipient of this grant, UJA-Federation requires that your agency be an active participant in the trauma coalition and engage a collaborative relationship with the other coalition partners."[6]

Sources differ on the formal founding date. The coalition's website and a 2010 account place its creation in 2001.[2][6] The State Comptroller records 2002, as does a 2026 interview with the coalition's CEO.[3][11] A Civil Resilience Network document itself gives both dates, describing a 2001 founding in one section and a February 2002 founding in an annex.[1] The difference may reflect separate milestones in the coalition's establishment.

From the seven founding members, the ITC expanded steadily. By the time of a Winter 2010 account, it collaborated with more than 50 organizations, government ministries, local agencies, and NGOs. It managed more than 200 initiatives across direct care, team training, and community preparedness, with combined budgets of $25 million and nine Resilience Centers.[6] A later account described the coalition as representing 50 community-based organizations and drawing on its members' more than 30 years of experience in developing resilience and responses to trauma in northern and southern Israel.[1]

The centerpiece of the ITC's domestic work is a network of government-backed Resilience Centers. The ITC dates the establishment of the model to 2005 through a partnership with the Government of Israel and key ministries.[12] INSS says the five Gaza Envelope centers were established by a government decision in 2007 through a partnership among government ministries, local authorities, and the coalition.[8] A separate account says the first center in the Gaza-border area was established in 2007 through a partnership involving the ITC, the Ministries of Health, Welfare, and Education, and the National Emergency Management Authority.[13]

Each center is designed around three core pillars: clinical care, community resilience, and emergency preparedness.[12] In routine periods the centers train and prepare local authorities, professionals, and emergency teams; during crises they provide on-site assistance, open support facilities, and dispatch professionals into the field.[13] Clinical services include first-line responses to anxiety and acute distress, ongoing treatment, individual and family counseling, home visits, and support for professional teams.[12] The service model allows for 12 to 36 treatment sessions with psychologists, social workers, and other professionals, delivered individually or to an entire family.[14] A joint procedure with the National Insurance Institute allowed people experiencing anxiety to receive up to 24 treatments without first completing recognition procedures as victims of hostile actions.[13]

The five original centers were located in Sderot and the regional councils of Hof Ashkelon, Sdot Negev, Sha'ar Hanegev, and Eshkol, collectively serving about 60,000 people.[10][10] By 2016, more than 25 percent of the Gaza Envelope population had received treatment or participated in center workshops since their establishment, and more than 14,000 residents were treated at the centers that year.[10] Treatment was available for a nominal fee, with 12 to 18 sessions financed by the National Insurance Institute.[10]

Center activity tracked the rhythm of conflict. Individual and family treatment peaked around Operation Cast Lead, Operation Pillar of Defense, and Operation Protective Edge; between periods of fighting, the centers typically served approximately 1,000 to 2,000 clients per year.[10] During Operation Cast Lead, Resilience Centers worked around the clock, combining trauma care, team training, and support for care providers at risk of burnout, with locally trained teams responding to individual and community needs.[6] Demand rose sharply after Operation Protective Edge as residents came to recognize both the danger facing their homes and the availability of professional care.[10] Residents described the psychological texture of life in those communities with the words, "We live in a paradise that occasionally transitions to hell" — "paradise" referring to the community and quality-of-life strengths of the region, and "hell" to the psychological cost of repeated exposure to security threats.[10]

Center directors, typically certified social workers, held responsibility for therapeutic, community, and administrative activities during emergencies and calmer periods.[10] Staff composition expanded dramatically after October 7, 2023: one account gave the number of therapists in the Gaza-border centers as 216 on October 6, rising to 1,600 at the height of the war and standing at 1,200 at publication in October 2025.[15] A separate January 2025 account reported 2,400 therapists meeting Ministry of Health criteria across the coalition's wider network at that time.[9]

The network grew over time. A 2018 account described approximately nine centers — five in the Gaza-border area, three in the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — and one serving the Bedouin community in the south.[13] By 2021, eleven centers were funded by the Ministry of Health and operated by the coalition: five in Gaza-border communities, four in Judea and Samaria, one for the Bedouin population in Be'er Sheva, and one in Ashkelon.[16] Additional centers operated under different funding arrangements, including a Golan Regional Council center funded by the Ministry of Welfare and two Galilee centers inaugurated in February 2021 with Ministry of Defense funding.[16]

An October 2025 report and English-language coalition pages cited 15 centers.[15][17] A 2026 interview cited 14.[11] The coalition's Hebrew-language activities page reported 12.[18] These counts may reflect the network's expansion and differences in the classification or funding of individual centers.

Beyond the resilience centers, the ITC operates programs addressing professional training, community resilience, and emergency preparedness. Its "helping the helpers" work supports hospital and education workers, people working with toddlers, hotline staff, first responders, and volunteers; training is designed by coalition experts and includes a self-help component for those delivering care.[1] A January 2025 interview with CEO Talia Levanon described work with firefighters, nurses, teachers, emergency coordinators, and others who come into contact with trauma survivors, training them to help both others and themselves.[9]

Direct care extends to children, older people, new immigrants, people from non-Jewish communities, young army veterans, and people with special needs.[1] Assistance to local authorities includes team training, emergency planning tailored to local characteristics, and support for senior municipal leadership.[1] By 2025, the coalition reported working with 160 local authorities on emergency preparedness.[9] It coordinates among member organizations, the Home Front Command, and government ministries, and has trained rabbis and imams to lead during crises, provide first emotional aid, and act as a bridge between communities and local and national government.[19] During one conflict, a rabbi who had received the coalition's training spent half a day calling every household in his community where a soldier had been recruited, asking the soldier's wife or parents what help was needed and what the community could do.[19]

The Home Front Command cooperated with the ITC to train social workers in Arab communities, including through a course designed specifically for the Bedouin community; the training generated interest in further collaboration.[20] A center for the Arab population in Wadi Ara was established approximately a year and a half before a 2026 interview with the coalition's CEO.[11] The ITC is also identified among third-sector organizations that developed and conducted courses and continuing-education programs for emergency-management officials.[20]

The coalition operates regional training hubs for leadership and emergency-management skills and provides organizations with resources for clinical and psychosocial recovery, including tools for self-care and burnout prevention.[2]

The Hamas terrorist attack of October 7, 2023 triggered a major activation of the ITC's resources. Before the attack, the coalition managed 12 resilience centers. Its staff began supporting evacuees from southern Israel in hotels and residents who remained in the area, while teams ran a hotline from the first hours of the emergency.[4] Center services included professional assistance, discussion groups, psychosocial support, sensory regulation, and art and photography activities.[4]

On October 12, 2023, the Ministry of Health approved a contract exempt from tender with the coalition to strengthen resilience-center operations and establish a National Resilience Center.[3] For the last quarter of 2023, the Ministry allocated NIS 29.18 million to the coalition from a NIS 34.66 million budget addition for the two resilience-center operators. As of the audit's end date in April 2024, NIS 9.57 million of the coalition's allocation had not been transferred. Funding was transferred weeks after activities took place, with some delays lasting months.[3]

The National Resilience Center, established in the immediate aftermath of October 7, was designed to make treatment accessible to people living where no local resilience center operated. A 2023 report said the National Insurance Institute and Ministry of Health decided to establish it in the first days after the attack, with initial funding estimated to cover about 2,200 patients — a figure the coalition's CEO considered insufficient at the time.[21] Operated through the ITC in partnership with ERAN, the center offered individual, group, and family treatment at no cost by telephone, Zoom, or in person.[22] An October 2025 account described the national center as serving 211 authorities without a permanent resilience center.[15] A 2026 interview put the figure at 220 authorities.[11] The State Comptroller recorded 2,100 individual, family, and group treatments at the National Resilience Center between October 7 and December 31, 2023, based on Ministry of Health dashboard data.[3]

Demand across the network surged after October 7. More than 19,000 people sought help from the centers following the attack, and demand at the Western Galilee Resilience Center rose by 400 percent.[23] In the Gaza Envelope communities, the resilience centers treated 1,340 people in September 2023 and 9,480 in December 2024 — the reported peak.[14] By October 2025, the network had treated about 24,000 people individually in the Gaza-border area since the start of the war, while hundreds of thousands had received group or community assistance.[15]

The ITC also provided professional support to Civil Commission staff and volunteers exposed to disturbing material while documenting the sexual crimes of October 7 and against hostages in captivity.[24] The network's expansion following the attack included branches in hospitals, academic institutions, colleges, and authorities without a permanent center.[15]

The ITC has deployed internationally in response to disasters and terrorist attacks across multiple continents, applying and adapting Israel's resilience model to varied cultural and institutional contexts.[1]

Among its earliest documented international deployments, the ITC trained educational psychologists in Beslan and clinical psychologists in Chechnya, and built community and national resilience networks in Sri Lanka following the 2004 tsunami. After Hurricane Katrina, it worked with educational and first-responder teams in Mississippi and helped prepare a local-resilience plan.[1]

After the March 2011 earthquake in Japan, trauma and resilience experts from the ITC, the Community Stress Prevention Center, and AMCHA worked with the Joint Distribution Committee to support professionals and volunteers assisting affected people. Programs conducted between 2011 and 2014 addressed identifying and treating trauma, fostering competence and hope, and self-care; 1,000 experts were trained and 70 became instructors who continued teaching these skills.[25]

Following the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, coalition members met with parents, school administrators, and clinical staff and delivered a five-hour "Psychological First Aid and Resilience" training attended by about two dozen social workers and first responders. The coalition's broader international approach — collaborating with local community stakeholders to devise recovery plans rather than imposing a template — had previously brought specialists to Mumbai and Toulouse.[26]

After the 2015 Hyper Cacher supermarket terrorist attack in Paris, the ITC worked with JDC Israel, UJA-Federation of New York, and JDC on trauma preparedness for the French Jewish community. CEO Talia Levanon met with leaders of three Jewish welfare organizations, and the resulting collaboration with OSE focused on training French clinicians, creating trauma-intervention programs, establishing a resilience center in Paris, and defining roles for routine and emergency periods. The initiative trained 80 doctors and 15 psychologists and established the Paris center.[25]

Following the April 2015 earthquake in Nepal, an ITC delegation transferred psychosocial knowledge to local leaders and professionals so they could share it more widely. Techniques included narrative and storytelling to help create order, continuity, and clarity, and non-verbal methods intended to foster calm and a sense of safety. The initiative was supported by JDC Israel and the Glazer Foundation.[25]

After the October 2018 terrorist attack on Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue, the Jewish Agency engaged the ITC in coordination with the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh and with support from Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Five Israeli specialists in post-trauma and grief were to provide immediate assistance and help develop a longer-term healing plan for the community.[27]

The coalition's longest-running and most extensive international engagement is with Ukraine. The ITC has supported and trained Ukrainian teams since 2014 in psychosocial skills, self-care, and community resilience. In 2014–2015, seven delegations — including representatives of the Israel Center for the Treatment of Psychotrauma, SELA, ERAN, NATAL, and AMCHA, with support from JDC Israel and the Jewish Federation of Chicago — trained local volunteers and professionals.[25] After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the coalition worked with the Ukrainian government and local leaders to establish resilience centers modeled on Israel's experience. The first center opened in Kyiv in April 2023; Odesa, Kharkiv, Ternopil, and Khmelnytskyi were named as planned locations.[28] More than 4,000 Ukrainian therapists were trained in psychosocial team-based skills during the war.[25]

Several factual details concerning the ITC are reported inconsistently. The coalition's website and a 2010 account place its establishment in 2001.[2][6] The State Comptroller and a 2026 ynet interview give 2002.[3][11] The Civil Resilience Network document gives both dates, stating 2001 in one section and February 2002 in an annex.[1]

Reported resilience-center totals also vary. A November 2023 report said the coalition managed 12 centers before October 7.[4] An October 2025 report and the coalition's English-language activities page cited 15.[15][17] A 2026 interview cited 14, while the coalition's Hebrew-language activities page reported 12.[11][18] These discrepancies may reflect changes over time and differences in how centers under varying funding or classification arrangements are counted.

The chronology of the original Gaza Envelope centers is likewise reported differently. One INSS memorandum says cooperation to create and operate the centers began in 2006.[10] A later INSS account says five centers were established by a government decision in 2007.[8] The ITC's website dates the broader resilience-center model to 2005.[12] These statements may refer to different stages in the rollout.

The coalition's homepage also reports 120 local authorities in a graphic element while accompanying text says approximately 160, without explaining the difference.[5]