Kochi and Avner recall with pain how their son used to wander the streets in a desperate search to ease his pain. They speak about his repeated hospitalizations in mental health facilities, where he never wanted to stay. But what haunts them the most is the question of whether or not they could have prevented their son's death.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
The pain of Bar Klaf's family members – following his self-immolation and subsequent death after the refusal by the IDF to recognize him as a disabled veteran – knows no bounds. They still struggle to wrap their minds around how their sweet boy and dutiful soldier, who dreamed of specializing in social work and starting a family, became a broken vessel that chose to envelop himself in flames – just to stop the pain.
Kochi Arava, Bar's mother, points a finger at the Defense Ministry, saying her son, "who contributed, helped and was full of ambition, became broken.
"He suffered, spent entire days wandering the streets. No matter how hard we searched, we couldn't find a treatment facility that suited him and turned to the Defense Ministry, but they denied responsibility and didn't recognize Bar as a disabled veteran. It broke him. He just wanted to find the right place that would help him."
During the seven-day mourning period for Bar, his mother and father – Avner Klaf, 60, who lives in Tel Aviv – were both visited by IDF veterans, who shared in their pain, including frustration with the system.
Their struggles were similar to Bar's, with some having been recognized as disabled veterans by the Defense Ministry – and aided accordingly – while others fell through the cracks. But all agreed that under no circumstance could any fighter be abandoned in their hardship.
Kochi, 62, recalled, "A week before tragedy struck, Bar agreed to be hospitalized in a mental health institution. But he just could not stay there, and because he was not a danger to himself or society, he was released. He needed unconventional help, and above all he wanted to be recognized for his problem."
According to Kochi, the fact that Bar even agreed to meet a psychiatrist working for the Defense Ministry – in order to receive recognition – pointed to the extent of his distress.
"It wasn't easy for him to sit with therapists, but he was willing to do it to get help," she said. "The goal was not money, but help with food, living, and treatments. Everything that he lacked. His financial and health condition deteriorated due to his mental condition. The Defense Ministry did not recognize him, but they quietly sent us to get another opinion. In the meantime, Bar gave up, and did what he did."
Supporting lone soldiers
Kochi and Avner, who divorced around 20 years ago, had two children – Bar, 33 years old at the time of his death, and his younger brother Gal, 26.
Avner, an educator who taught at the same school where Bar studied growing up, said he was an active child who loved sports, dancing, and skateboarding.
In the IDF too, "they said he was sociable, friendly, and responsible. When I asked his commander what Bar was like in the army, he immediately responded 'dutiful,'" Avner said proudly.
According to the parents, Bar spoke very little of his military service. Avner recalled that on the weekends –when Bar would come home from the base – he would always insist on staying active.
"He probably went through unpleasant experiences, and I guess this way of dealing with them – repressing. He just told me, 'Dad, you don't understand what we experience during the week, so I always have to be active on the weekend.' And he would go out a lot and at the beginning of the week he would return to the army."
After finishing his military service, Bar lived with his father in Tel Aviv, where he found a job as a manager at a local pizzeria to become financially stable and move out. Bar eventually moved out and rented an apartment with his brother Gal near the beach.
"Oh, how much Bar loved the sea," Avner recalled.
He also said that when he and Kochi divorced, Bar "took it upon himself to look after Gal, who was a baby at the time, as if he felt the responsibility to do so. He always considered other people. During the holidays he would invite lone soldiers just so they would have a place to stay. At work he would make sure to bring coffee and pastries to the delivery people, to boost their mood. He's always been like that."
"Therapeutic setting in nature"
Around five years ago, Bar began showing signs of distress. According to the parents, he was unable to hold down a job and had episodes of impulsive anger as well as difficulty adhering to schedules.
Avner said, "Bar stopped eating. it probably helped him to suppress the difficult reality he was dealing with. He wandered outside all day, but at the same time wanted to be clean and would shower for hours. Two weeks ago I asked him why he was walking the streets all the time, and he replied that it made him feel 'liberated.'"
Sometimes, Kochi would join Bar on the long walks hoping he would share his pain and it would alleviate.
"He was going through a major crisis, and we were all looking for ways to help him," she said, with her voice breaking. "He was looking for a place to live, a place that would be his, but he couldn't find it. I couldn't help him financially, because I was having a hard time financially myself. Bar was unable to keep up with his work and ran into financial difficulties. In recent months – after couch surfing from friend to friend – he slept in a rented room in a neighbor's house in Netanya, near me. He had a place to rest, but during the day he would walk around from the grocery store and to the sea. He needed space.
"I suggested to Bar that we look for a therapeutic setting for him in nature, with the help of associations that help combat victims, a kind of good hospitalization alternative where he would eat properly, have a room, and receive proper treatment. That is what I've been working on in the past month, but Bar kept saying that he didn't like the people in these facilities and that he would leave after a day or two.
"I felt that he couldn't handle a conventional treatment facility. Sometimes he agreed to try and other times, he wouldn't hear about it. The therapists would tell me, 'Only when a broken person really wants to receive treatment – then we can help him.' Bar truly wanted help but did not succeed. After all, he did seek help and did not hide."
"The psychiatrist said Bar did not need to be hospitalized"
As time passed, the situation exacerbated, but no one expected it to lead to such a tragic turnout. Bar's friends even created a WhatsApp group – called "Bringing a smile back to Bar's face" – where they joined forces to arrange food and a place to sleep for him. Unfortunately, Bar never recovered.
Bar's uncle, Lior, recalled, "A year and a half ago he told us that if we all thought he should go to a psychiatric hospital – he was ready. We immediately went to the hospital, sat there for a few hours, and waited for the psychiatrist. He talked to Bar for a few minutes and at the end of the conversation said there was no reason to hospitalize him.
"It turns out that Bar told the psychiatrist that everything was fine, so there was no reason to hospitalize him immediately. From there, he no longer wanted to hear about hospitalization, but his condition continued to deteriorate. His fits of rage became more frequent and powerful. They saw that it was difficult for him, but it was not possible to hospitalize him when he wasn't ready to receive treatment.
"There are a lot of veterans walking among us and the Defense Ministry must help. I met them during the mourning period, each with their own pain and difficulties. We have joined a WhatsApp group for such fighters, and have become a part of this family.
"We couldn't save Bar, but there are many others among us and we owe them our lives. We were heartbroken to hear that a mere day after Bar set himself on hire, another fighter, the late [IDF veteran] Or Donio, committed suicide [after he too was rejected the recognition of disabled veteran by the Defense Ministry]. We need to save them, and the country must wake up."
"I told him how proud of him I was"
Hearing Kochi and Avner speak of Bar's last week alive is heart-quenching.
Avner said, "Two weeks ago I met with him and Gal, and Bar asked to go to the beach. We sat together and he began pouring out his heart. He said that he wanted love, and that he was ready to receive treatment, but didn't know how. He said that one part of him told him that he needed treatment, and the other said he didn't. I asked him, 'Do you want to be hospitalized?,' and he nodded. I said I wanted him to say it out loud. Then he looked at me and said: 'Dad, I want to be hospitalized. I want to be treated.'
"I immediately called Kochi to arrange the treatment, but just ten minutes later, Bar said he was giving up and wasn't ready to go. I told him how proud I was of him for at least trying, and that he was going through the process step by step. The next day he agreed to go to a hospital for a mental health check-up and was hospitalized. But a day later he again asked to be released."
Since, as mentioned above, Bar was not a danger to himself or society, the hospital could not keep him there against his will. After signing his release papers, he took a cab and returned to Netanya.
According to Kochi, "The hospital said he was a nice and gentle guy, nice and a little lost, but they explained that they couldn't force him to stay there. That's true, but very painful."
At the beginning of last week, after Bar was released from the hospital, Avner went with him to the municipality's welfare department to sign documents needed to receive a so-called rehabilitation basket. But when they arrived and had to wait to receive service, Bar insisted that they return home. A few days later he set himself on fire.
On the morning of the tragic incident, Kochi saw Bar in the morning. At around noon, she received a message from a friend telling her about what was on the news – that a former fighter suffering from PTSD set himself on fire. When Kochi read the message, her heart skipped a beat.
"At first I didn't understand what she was talking about. It was unfathomable. After all, Bar didn't show any signs that he would do such an extreme thing. He did show signs of desperation, and I was also desperate, but I didn't believe he would reach such a state.
"I immediately called a friend that Bar lives with, and he said that he called an ambulance for him because he was suffering from burns. He said that he saw Bar in the shower 'red all over.' I informed Avner and drove to the hospital, where they told me that Bar was in critical condition. He arrived conscious, probably because of the adrenaline, and asked to be left alone.
"When I arrived, he was already sedated and connected to a ventilator. Seeing him like that, with bandages – it was an incredibly difficult sight. And it was even more horrible to bury him two days later. My child dreamed of a relationship, of five children, of studying social work. How did he fall like this between the cracks?"
Unlike Kochi, Avner immediately understood that the news was talking about his son. A moment before Kochi called him to tell him about Bar's hospitalization, his partner told him that a 33-year-old former soldier had set himself on fire.
"I put two and two together and broke down," he said. "Bar fought for his life for two days, until he couldn't anymore. And in those two days, in the hospital, I felt like I was coming apart.
"I think he wanted to rest, and that was his way of crying out. A terrible way. The doctors told us that he only had a slim chance of surviving. On Friday, when I entered his room, I cried a lot, and then I told him: 'You've done enough in your life. It's your time to rest.' I felt that he no longer needed to fight. A few minutes later he passed away. I felt that this was what he was looking for, rest."
"He couldn't find the strength"
Now Bar's family is trying to pick up the pieces. Hurt and angry, they are looking for answers.
Looking at a picture of Bar from his military days, Kochi says, "I hung this picture on my wall with pride. After all, Bar had accomplishments as a fighter in a unit that participated in quite a few operations. He also fought in Operation Protective Edge in 2014, as a reservist. Usually, fighters are proud of the things they did and their photos from the army. But when I showed the picture on the wall to Bar, he turned his head and walked away, unable to look at it.
"During the last Day of Independence, when I suggested to him that we should see the Air Force air show, he refused. Bar was a very moral, very ideological guy, and loved the country very much, but he was unable to see signs of the army. How could it have been perceived as anything other than PTSD?
With regard to the Defense Ministry, Kochi said that no fighter should be ignored after his service.
"I had the help of a close friend, who is familiar with the matter, and she advised me to contact the Defense Ministry and even wrote on the application form everything that Bar did during his service. The arrests, the long nights, the campaigns. Harsh things that could traumatize anyone. We went to psychologists who kept saying that they could not rule out PTSD. But in the end, the Defense Ministry decided it was not PTSD, and that's it.
"The Defense Ministry makes you feel like a liar and then makes you prove that you do indeed have PTSD. Bar suffered from anxiety, fits – all signs of PTSD. When a person asks for help, it's because he needs it, and does not really want to be labeled as disabled. Who wants to be restricted in this country? After all, everyone can be affected differently by events. One person can be hit by stones in Hebron, and it won't affect him, but for someone else, it will be traumatic."
One of the people supporting the family during Bar's hospitalization and later the funeral as well was IDF veteran Itzik Saidyan, who self-immolated at the Defense Ministry's rehabilitation department offices in Petach Tikva two years ago in protest of their treatment of veterans. Saidyan was diagnosed with PTSD but too was denied the recognition of a disabled veteran. Just like Bar, Saidyan too participated in the 2014 Gaza war.
"I don't know if they knew each other before or not, but Saidyan felt he needed to apologize because he said his act was supposed to bring about a change in the system. It's clear that he has nothing to apologize to us for, he's not guilty at all. In fact, he helped Bar. But a change is really warranted.
"Incomprehensible tragedy"
"We went through a tragedy that cannot be understood or accepted. As a mother, I told myself that my child will overcome the struggle, that he will rise and become strong. But he was in such a mental whirlwind that he could not deal with the pressure. He could no longer persevere," Kochi said.
Avner, on the other hand, prefers not to speak about the Defense Ministry. He was under the impression that the medical system was more at fault.
Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!
"I understand that the system operates according to a certain policy, which must be adhered to, and according to the law, if a person is not dangerous to himself or others, and does not wish to be hospitalized – he can get up and leave. But I saw with my own eyes how Bar sits with psychiatrists and feels threatened when they talk to him matter-of-factly. When he was asked about the army he would remain silent, and when he felt attacked he would answer in an unpleasant way. He did not know how to deal with his difficulty.
"We must change the law and make sure that even a person who is not considered dangerous at that moment can be in forced hospitalization for a few days, at least until the drugs he receives have an effect. So that he can really understand whether he needs hospitalization and treatment, and if he is ready to receive them. He should not be allowed to make decisions at the moment out of pain.
The Defense Ministry said in response to an Israel Hayom inquiry, that it "shared in the grief of the Kalf family, for the death of the late Bar Kalf. The late Bar's request was examined in depth by a number of mental health experts from the Defense Ministry, and no connection was found between his mental state, which was not caused by PTSD, and his military service.
The ministry stressed that "a mere three days after he submitted the application for recognition, the late Bar was immediately approved for medical and psychological treatments funded by the rehabilitation department. In addition, throughout the stages of recognition, the officials in the rehabilitation department were in contact with Bar and his mother and offered him a variety of treatment options, but unfortunately, Bar did not implement them."
