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Based on data from Israel, no fewer than 98 Palestinian individuals have lost their lives while detained since October 2023. A human rights group based in Israel has reported that the real number is probably considerably higher, because of hundreds of unaccounted for individuals in Gaza.

Study Results

A new investigation documented casualties caused by assault, medical neglect, and malnutrition. Analysts utilized transparency petitions, autopsy findings, and testimonies with lawyers, activists, relatives, and eyewitnesses.

Official sources provided detailed information solely covering the initial 240 days of the conflict. Throughout these months, government statistics show an historically high fatality rate among Palestinian detainees, averaging one death once every four-day period.

Recent Figures

Israeli defense forces most recently revised information on custodial deaths for May 2024, and the prison service by September 2024. Analysts identified another 35 deaths in custody following these periods and confirmed them with official sources.

Although the aggregate figure of deaths charted being substantially larger than other recent estimates, it almost certainly does not reflect the full scale of Palestinian casualties, according to the head of the prisoner monitoring division.

“Even though we are providing evidence for a larger total of deaths than once estimated, this is not a full picture,” he said. “We are sure that there are even now individuals who perished in custody that we don’t know about.”

Non-Combatant Fatalities

Restricted official information suggests that the vast majority of Palestinian detainees from Gaza who died in prison were non-combatants, per a simultaneous examination.

By May of 2024, a armed services record monitoring all combatants in Gaza, a registry of over 47,000 identified persons, listed merely 21 casualties in custody. At that time, 65 Gazans from Gaza had died in jail.

Custodial Environment

Assault, torture, and other abuse of Palestinians has been normalised across Israel’s prison network during 24 months of conflict. Senior officials have openly admitted inadequate food and an below-ground detention center confining Palestinians who are denied sunlight.

Existing and previous inmates and informants from the armed services have all alleged widespread breaches of human rights protocols.

Institutionalized Cruelty

The institutionalised cruelty was accompanied by a alarming increase in fatalities recorded across no fewer than 12 detention centers in Israel. Over ten years before the hostilities, there were usually two or three deaths a year.

“This is not merely an isolated incident here and there. It is systemic and it is likely to persist,” an official said, partially since there is a environment of near total impunity for killing and mistreating Palestinian individuals.

Just one case of attacking detainees has come to trial, with the soldier sentenced to half a year. A endeavor to prosecute additional individuals over a brutal attack including abuse caused public rallies and the arrest of Israel’s chief legal officer, with the suspects now insisting that allegations against them are dropped.

Lack of Accountability

“Regardless of this mass number of fatalities, during 24 months not a single person has faced arrest,” the spokesperson noted. “There have been no indictments over any killing.

“While these measures are being applied, each Palestinian individual in detention faces risk, even the those in good health, even the young ones who have no medical issues.”

Prominent Examples

Some deaths in custody have been publicly known, including a senior hospital director who died in detention after four months in custody.

A prisoner held with the victim testified that he was brought to the yard by correctional officers just prior to his death, clearly wounded and exposed from the waist down. His remains has not been repatriated to Gaza.

Additional detainees who perished in confinement by Israeli authorities are unidentified. The prison service and military supplied analysts with the figure of deaths in detention, and limited further data for example the site where they perished, but excluding the inmates’ personal details.

Documentation Problems

Regarding 21 occurrences, mostly detainees from Gaza, researchers were not able to correlate the limited information supplied by authorities to a fatality documented by advocacy bodies, via statements from freed prisoners or coverage in the media.

The prisoners’ relatives might not have learned about their family members’ fatalities either, as Israel has impeded efforts to monitor Palestinian individuals it is holding. For seven months at the beginning of the hostilities, the Israeli military declined to give essential data about the whereabouts of thousands of people held in Gaza, practically implementing a approach of involuntary missing persons, per the rights monitoring body.

Restricted Access

From May 2024, government bodies have created an digital correspondence for requests about Palestinians from Gaza, but this has provided only a modest and inadequate enhancement. Investigators noted|observed|commented on