While the effects of war on individuals, age groups, and communities have been thoroughly studied, there has been relatively little mention in the literature regarding its differential effects on adult children and their parents and their elderly grandparents.

509 participants, 167 elderly parents, 171 adult offspring and 171 adult grandchildren living in the northern and southern regions of Israel were interview after the Second Lebanon War (2006) and the Cast Lead Operation (2008). The participants were sampled by a cluster sampling.

Elderly parents experiences higher levels of PTSD symptoms than their adult children or their adult grandchildren do. Women experience higher levels PTSD symptoms than men and Israeli Arabs and Druze more then Israeli Jews in all three generations.

A policy should be enacted among the local authorities and the governmental offices that would ensure accessibility to and the ability to provide proper care especially for the elderly population during times of war or terror events. In addition, it is important to setup local teams in every local community, to deal with the level of mental and emotional preparedness of the home front and its inhabitants, in case the latter should again become part of the human casualties of the wars and terrorist events that occur in Israel.