Trauma for Oct. 7 survivors and their families endures: ‘It’s never going to go back to normal — for anybody’

Rom El-Hai escaped the blood-soaked Nova festival near the Gaza border with his life, but that was just the beginning of his fight for survival.

“I was a regular guy before. I would go to work every day, I had a girlfriend, and occasionally I would go to a festival. Life was normal — I liked my life,” the 32-year-old who planned to study to become an insurance agent, professed to The Post. “Now I’m alone — I lost my job, lost my girlfriend, lost friends … The PTSD and depression are very intense.”

It’s been three years since the Hamas massacre, but for many survivors and their families, the terror and trauma persist. For some, it’s made supporting themselves difficult, if not impossible. 

“People think, ‘OK, you survived, you’ll go back to life,’” said El-Hai. “Everything changed, and I’m learning how to live with that.”

During the harrowing hours hiding in the brush of a forest while evading Hamas capture, El-Hai dodged gunfire, saw brutal death and discovered terrorists celebrating before finally finding his way to safety in a nearby village. 

Of the two friends who survived the harrowing ordeal with him on that fateful day, only one recently returned to his job.

“At this age, you want stability, to meet someone and build a home and family life,” he said, noting how easy it is to feel rudderless in the search for purpose again.

Bad actors demonizing the Jewish state and rewriting the bloody massacre exacerbate the suffering, along with the multi-front war Israel is still fighting.

“The world hates me and wants me dead, there’s war — it doesn’t end,” he added.

“That’s what people don’t understand — you think, ‘Tomorrow it’s going to end,’ but it doesn’t.”

Evyatar David, the former hostage who appeared on the Aug. 3, 2025, New York Post cover shown emaciated and forced to dig his own grave, wrote last month about the struggles he still deals with in the aftermath of his 738 days trapped in Hamas hell.

“Surviving captivity is one thing, but complete rehabilitation is a different battle,” detailed the 25-year-old who’s living with PTSD and flashbacks. “I want to win this battle as well.” 

Seth Davis, the CEO of the Tribe of Nova Foundation, an organization started in the wake of Oct. 7 with a mission to “save lives, help heal and empower the community [and] prevent suicides,” said that many people mistakenly think that if they keep moving they can outrun the trauma.

“Even after three years, the anxiety runs deeper,” he told The Post. “People think it’s time to move on, but sometimes people have more severe issues than they had a year ago — and we don’t know what’s going to happen next year.”

Many of those at the Nova festival were young people in their 20s just getting their footing, and he notes that a number of them have had to move back home and live with their families.

Luckily, he said, “parents are getting tools to help cope with the children and mitigate suicide.”

Eric Goldstein, the CEO of the UJA Federation of New York, noted that only 20% of Nova survivors have maintained more than three months of continuous work, and says there’s an “urgent need” for more support. Early next year, a 10-acre rehabilitative center called UJA New York Nova House is set to open near Tel Aviv.

Shye Klein, 29, escaped balaclava-clad terrorists aiming machine guns and witnessed dozens upon dozens of lifeless, bullet-ridden and bloody bodies.

Before the attacks, he worked as an event photographer, but now he struggles with the job.

Working events with big crowds and loud music can trigger anxiety, even in seemingly innocuous moments.

“Maybe a DJ will stop the music by accident and my heart races and I think, ‘OMG, where are the terrorists?’ It’s too stressful and nerve-wracking.”

He noted that a “large number” of Nova survivors are homeless, out-of-work and living in their cars.

“Many people can’t return to their jobs, and there’s no financial support,” Klein said. “People who were already at risk [strained family relationships or lost] fell into a worse place after Oct 7.”

He added, “People keep warning signs very well hidden.”

With so many young people quietly teetering on the brink, Klein ruefully predicted “no one will know until somebody else kills themselves.”

In the first two years after the attacks, he found a bleak workaround when work and housing were an issue.

“I started speaking to different communities for the first two years just to have a guaranteed place to eat and sleep and live,” he admitted.

“There’s nothing normal about my life since Oct. 7,” added Klein, who’s accepted his diagnosis of PTSD as a lifelong designation. “It’s never going to go back to normal — for anybody.”

Irit Ben Arye is an Israeli mom of eight whose husband, Haim, killed himself about two weeks after Oct. 7. The 56-year-old bus driver, who rushed to evacuate shell-shocked victims from the devastated Kibbutz Be’eri on Oct. 7, never recovered from the trauma he witnessed.

Now, his 52-year-old widow counsels other women who have lost husbands to suicide in the wake of Oct. 7.

“People are dealing with a lot of stress and emotions, fear and trauma,” she said. “It’s not over.”