Fllowing a 2 year struggle, PHRI sees a real achievement in its struggle for the right to mental health of Sderot residents. During Protective Edge War, PHRI met an incomprehensible reality in which the state did not invest in adequate mental health care to the victims of continuous trauma in Sderot. Wrose, children and youth had no access to care at all. This, in times when politicians hailed the resilience of those same residents of the south of Israel. The situation and State failures were exposed in PHRI’s report, “Abandoned by All” that reviewed the privatization of Mental Healthcare Services in times of emergency in the South

A long and dedicated struggle of the Center for Social Rights in Sderot, PHRI and other partners, the Ministry of Health finally committed to support the clinic in Sderot with additional manpower, including a psychiatrist and social workers. Although it is one achievement in a much wider struggle for equality between the center and the periphery of Israel, it does carry a real change for the residents of Sderot who live under the constant threat of attack and war, and who carry with them the scars of recurrent traumas.