🔗 Share this article

Based on figures from Israel, a minimum of 98 Palestinians have died while in custody since October 2023. A human rights group based in Israel has stated that the true number is almost certainly significantly greater, as a result of many of disappeared individuals originating in Gaza.

Study Results

A recent report tracked fatalities attributed to assault, lack of healthcare, and starvation. Analysts used freedom of information requests, forensic reports, and testimonies with lawyers, human rights defenders, next of kin, and observers.

Israeli authorities provided detailed statistics only for the opening period of the war. During this time, official figures indicate an unprecedented casualty rate among Palestinian prisoners, equating to a life lost each 96 hours.

Recent Figures

Official armed forces finalized data on custodial deaths for May 2024, and the prison service in September 2024. Analysts identified another 35 deaths in custody subsequent to these timeframes and confirmed them with Israeli authorities.

Even with the total number of casualties documented being much greater than previous assessments, it almost certainly does not reflect the entire scope of losses among Palestinians, according to the head of the prisoner monitoring division.

“Although we are presenting proof for a larger total of fatalities than earlier indicated, this is not a full picture,” he explained. “We are confident that there are even now people who perished in detention that we are unaware of.”

Civilian Casualties

Confidential Israeli data suggests that the vast majority of Palestinian detainees from Gaza who died in prison were non-combatants, per a related inquiry.

By May of 2024, a defense forces registry monitoring all combatants in Gaza, a list of more than 47,000 named individuals, documented just 21 deaths in custody. By that point, 65 Palestinians from Gaza had perished in jail.

Prison Situation

Assault, mistreatment, and additional maltreatment of Palestinians has become routine across Israel’s prison network during 24 months of war. Senior officials have publicly referenced inadequate food and an underground jail confining detainees who are denied sunlight.

Current and former inmates and whistleblowers from the Israeli military have uniformly asserted widespread breaches of international law.

Organized Maltreatment

The institutionalised cruelty occurred alongside a alarming increase in deaths recorded across a minimum of 12 prison sites in Israel. During the previous decade before the hostilities, there were on average a couple fatalities a year.

“This isn’t just an individual case occasionally. It is widespread and it is expected to endure,” an official said, in part since there is a culture of almost complete immunity for killing and mistreating detainees.

Just one case of assaulting detainees has come to trial, with the military personnel given a penalty to seven months. An effort to prosecute others over a brutal attack involving sexual violence led to political demonstrations and the apprehension of Israel’s senior defense attorney, with the accused individuals now insisting that allegations against them be withdrawn.

Lack of Accountability

“Despite this large quantity of fatalities, during 24 months not one individual has been detained,” the official noted. “There are no indictments over any killing.

“While these policies are being applied, all Palestinian detainees in detention is at peril, including the those in good health, even the youth who have no health problems.”

High-Profile Cases

Some deaths in confinement have been widely reported, including a senior medical chief who perished in prison after 120 days in confinement.

A prisoner held with the victim stated that he was led to the yard by correctional officers just prior to his death, obviously hurt and exposed from the waist down. His remains remains unreleased to Gaza.

Additional detainees who lost their lives in detention in Israel are unidentified. Correctional authorities and defense forces provided analysts with the figure of fatalities in confinement, and basic additional information for example the facility where they died, but not the inmates’ personal details.

Recognition Difficulties

For 21 instances, primarily people from Gaza, investigators were unable to correlate the few details provided by officials to a fatality recorded by advocacy bodies, either through accounts from former inmates or reporting in the press.

The detainees’ families might not have learned about their relatives’ casualties as well, as Israel has made it difficult to monitor detainees it is holding. For seven months at the beginning of the conflict, the defense forces refused to supply essential data about the whereabouts of many of persons confined in Gaza, practically carrying out a approach of forced disappearance, per the advocacy organization.

Limited Transparency

From May 2024, government bodies have established an digital correspondence for inquiries about detainees from Gaza, but this has led to just a partial and limited enhancement. Analysts noted|observed|commented on