🔗 Share this article

According to data from Israel, at least 98 Palestinians have died while detained since October 2023. A rights monitoring body based in Israel has reported that the true toll is likely substantially larger, due to hundreds of missing people in Gaza.

Report Findings

A new investigation tracked fatalities resulting from physical violence, failure to provide medical care, and starvation. Researchers used official data requests, forensic reports, and testimonies with legal representatives, human rights defenders, relatives, and observers.

Israeli authorities disclosed comprehensive information limited to the opening period of the war. Over this period, official figures show an historically high casualty rate among Palestinian detainees, averaging a life lost once every four-day period.

Recent Figures

Israeli defense forces most recently revised records on detention fatalities for May 2024, and detention administration by September 2024. Analysts discovered a further 35 casualties in custody after these dates and confirmed them with official sources.

Although the aggregate figure of fatalities documented being substantially larger than other recent estimates, it probably omits the entire scope of losses among Palestinians, according to the leader of the prisoners and detainees department.

“Even though we are presenting proof for a higher number of casualties than earlier indicated, this is not the entire story,” he stated. “We are sure that there are still people who died in detention that we have not identified.”

Civilian Deaths

Restricted Israeli data suggests that the vast majority of incarcerated Palestinians from Gaza who perished in prison were ordinary citizens, based on a simultaneous investigation.

By May of 2024, a military intelligence database monitoring all militants in Gaza, a roster of over 47,000 listed people, recorded only 21 casualties in detention. By that date, 65 Palestinians from Gaza had perished in detention.

Custodial Environment

Brutality, torture, and other abuse of Palestinians has been normalised across Israel’s prison network during two years of war. Top government figures have publicly acknowledged starvation rations and an underground jail confining Palestinians who are kept in darkness.

Existing and previous prisoners and informants from the defense forces have uniformly asserted systemic violations of human rights protocols.

Organized Maltreatment

The institutionalised cruelty came with a disturbing rise in fatalities documented across no fewer than 12 civilian and military facilities in Israel. Over ten years prior to the conflict, there were usually two or three fatalities a year.

“This is not only a single occurrence occasionally. It is widespread and it is expected to endure,” a spokesperson said, partially since there is a climate of near total impunity for fatalities and maltreatment of detainees.

Merely one incident of assaulting prisoners has reached litigation, with the soldier handed a punishment to seven months. An attempt to prosecute additional individuals over a brutal attack involving sexual violence caused public rallies and the apprehension of Israel’s chief legal officer, with the alleged perpetrators now insisting that allegations against them be dismissed.

Absence of Consequences

“Regardless of this mass number of casualties, over two years not a single person has faced arrest,” the official noted. “There have been no charges over any killing.

“As long as these policies continue to be enforced, all Palestinian detainees in detention faces risk, including the those in good health, also the young ones who have no medical issues.”

High-Profile Cases

Certain fatalities in custody have been high profile, for instance a 50-year-old hospital director who died in detention after a third of a year in detention.

A prisoner detained alongside the deceased reported that he was brought to the yard by prison staff just prior to his demise, visibly injured and naked from the hips downward. His remains has not been repatriated to Gaza.

Further inmates who perished in detention in Israel stay unnamed. Detention administrators and military gave researchers with the number of casualties in detention, and basic additional information including the facility where they perished, but without the prisoners’ names.

Identification Challenges

For 21 instances, mostly individuals from Gaza, analysts could not to match the limited information provided by government bodies to a death recorded by human rights groups, via statements from freed prisoners or coverage in the media.

The detainees’ families could be unaware about their family members’ fatalities also, as Israel has impeded efforts to locate detainees it is holding. For seven months at the outset of the war, the defense forces refused to give fundamental details about the condition of many of individuals detained in Gaza, effectively carrying out a practice of unacknowledged detention, according to the human rights group.

Restricted Access

Starting in May 2024, authorities have created an digital correspondence for inquiries about Palestinians from Gaza, but this has resulted in merely a modest and inadequate enhancement. Investigators noted|observed|commented on