For months after October 7, the fields of Israel told a different story. Crops stood untended. Tractors rusted. Irrigation lines curled like veins through soil that had seen too much. Many farmers evacuated or returned to shattered property; others stayed and worked in silence.
Behind the silence, an invisible crisis has been growing — one rarely discussed but deeply felt.
Mental Health First Aid Israel calls it the silent harvest: the psychological toll on those whose work depends on the land itself, and the quiet rise in despair and suicide risk among agricultural workers coping with loss, debt, and displacement.
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