Among 10th graders, 8% of Jews, 18% of Arabs say they attempted suicide
Or Kashti; 14/3/08
Nearly eight percent of Jewish Israeli 10th-graders and nearly 18 percent of their Arab counterparts say they have tried to kill themselves at least once, while 17 percent and 20 percent, respectively, say they have thought seriously about suicide. These figures emerge from a study carried out several years ago by Dr. Yossi Harel-Fisch of Bar-Ilan University submitted recently to the Education Ministry. About 1,600 Jewish 10th-graders and 2,000 Arab 10th-graders participated in the survey. Among the Jewish respondents, nine percent reported that in the year prior to the survey they had thought about how they would kill themselves. Some 3.7 percent of the Jews and 9.2 percent of the Arabs reported at least one suicide attempt that ended in injury, poisoning or a drug overdose.