🔗 Share this article

Based on figures provided by Israel, a minimum of 98 Palestinians have died during detention since October 2023. An advocacy organization based in Israel has stated that the actual figure is almost certainly substantially higher, because of many of unaccounted for individuals in Gaza.

Study Results

A recent report recorded casualties attributed to assault, medical neglect, and starvation. Analysts used freedom of information requests, medical examiner documents, and testimonies with attorneys, human rights defenders, next of kin, and observers.

Official sources disclosed complete information only for the initial 240 days of the conflict. During this time, reported numbers show an historically high fatality rate among detained Palestinians, equating to a life lost every four days.

Latest Data

Official armed forces most recently revised information on custodial deaths for May 2024, and the prison service by September 2024. Researchers documented another 35 deaths in detention after these dates and validated them with government bodies.

Even with the aggregate figure of fatalities recorded being much greater than other recent estimates, it probably omits the full scale of Palestinian casualties, as stated by the director of the prisoners and detainees department.

“Even though we are presenting proof for a larger total of deaths than once estimated, this is an incomplete account,” he stated. “We are sure that there are yet detainees who perished in custody that we don’t know about.”

Civilian Casualties

Confidential government records shows that the vast majority of Palestinian prisoners from Gaza who lost their lives in detention were ordinary citizens, based on a related inquiry.

During May of 2024, a military intelligence database following all combatants in Gaza, a roster of more than 47,000 identified persons, recorded just 21 casualties in custody. At that time, 65 Gazans from Gaza had died in jail.

Custodial Environment

Assault, mistreatment, and further cruelty of Palestinian individuals has become routine across Israel’s jail system over the duration of war. Senior officials have publicly acknowledged inadequate food and an underground jail confining detainees who are kept in darkness.

Current and former prisoners and insiders from the defense forces have all alleged widespread breaches of international law.

Systemic Abuse

The organized mistreatment was accompanied by a disturbing rise in deaths documented across at least 12 detention centers in Israel. Over ten years prior to the hostilities, there were usually a couple casualties a year.

“This does not represent merely an isolated incident here and there. It is widespread and it is expected to endure,” a representative stated, partially since there is a culture of almost complete immunity for killing and mistreating Palestinian individuals.

Merely one incident of beating detainees has come to trial, with the service member sentenced to 210 days. A endeavor to charge other suspects over a brutal attack featuring sexual violence caused political demonstrations and the apprehension of Israel’s senior defense attorney, with the accused individuals now demanding that indictments against them are dropped.

Lack of Accountability

“Despite this large quantity of fatalities, over two years not one individual has faced arrest,” the representative stated. “There exist no charges over any fatality.

“During the time these policies remain in effect, each Palestinian individual in detention faces risk, even the healthy ones, including the young ones who have no health problems.”

Prominent Examples

Several casualties in detention have been publicly known, such as a 50-year-old medical chief who died in detention after four months in custody.

A prisoner detained alongside the individual stated that he was led to the courtyard by guards immediately preceding his demise, obviously hurt and naked from the waist down. His body has not been returned to Gaza.

Additional detainees who died in confinement by Israeli authorities are unidentified. The prison service and armed services gave investigators with the number of casualties in detention, and limited further data such as the location where they died, but not the prisoners’ names.

Documentation Problems

For 21 instances, mainly individuals from Gaza, investigators were unable to connect the limited information given by government bodies to a fatality registered by rights organisations, via accounts from released detainees or accounts in the press.

The prisoners’ relatives may not know about their relatives’ casualties also, as Israel has made it difficult to monitor detainees it is detaining. Over half a year at the start of the war, the armed services would not provide to give essential data about the condition of thousands of persons confined in Gaza, effectively implementing a practice of unacknowledged detention, as stated by the rights monitoring body.

Limited Transparency

From May 2024, government bodies have created an digital correspondence for enquiries about Palestinian individuals from Gaza, but this has resulted in merely a modest and inadequate improvement. Analysts noted|observed|commented on