🔗 Share this article

Per information released by Israel, no fewer than 98 Palestinians have perished while detained beginning in October 2023. An advocacy organization operating from Israel has stated that the true number is likely significantly larger, due to many of unaccounted for detainees in Gaza.

Study Results

An updated study documented fatalities resulting from assault, failure to provide medical care, and inadequate nutrition. Investigators utilized official data requests, autopsy findings, and discussions with lawyers, human rights defenders, next of kin, and witnesses.

Government bodies released complete data solely covering the opening period of the war. Over this period, official figures indicate an historically high casualty rate among Palestinian prisoners, averaging a life lost each 96 hours.

Recent Figures

Official armed forces finalized records on detention fatalities for May 2024, and detention administration by September 2024. Investigators identified another 35 fatalities in confinement after these dates and confirmed them with government bodies.

Despite the aggregate figure of deaths recorded being significantly higher than earlier projections, it likely omits the entire scope of losses among Palestinians, according to the leader of the prisoners and detainees department.

“While we are providing evidence for a greater figure of deaths than previously reported, this is an incomplete account,” he said. “We are confident that there are still individuals who lost their lives in detention that we have not identified.”

Civilian Deaths

Restricted government records shows that the majority of incarcerated Palestinians from Gaza who perished in prison were non-combatants, per a related investigation.

By May of this year, a armed services record tracking all combatants in Gaza, a list of more than 47,000 listed people, recorded only 21 fatalities in detention. By that date, 65 Gazans from Gaza had lost their lives in prison.

Custodial Environment

Physical violence, mistreatment, and other abuse of Palestinians is now standard practice across Israel’s jail system throughout two years of hostilities. Top government figures have publicly referenced starvation rations and an underground jail holding Palestinians who are kept in darkness.

Existing and previous detainees and whistleblowers from the armed services have collectively claimed routine infractions of human rights protocols.

Organized Maltreatment

The systematic abuse came with a troubling surge in fatalities documented across no fewer than 12 prison sites in Israel. Over ten years preceding the hostilities, there were usually two or three deaths a year.

“This isn’t just an individual case sporadically. It is widespread and it is likely to persist,” a representative commented, partially because there is a environment of virtual exemption from consequences for harming and abusing detainees.

Only a single instance of assaulting inmates has come to trial, with the military personnel given a penalty to 210 days. An effort to try additional individuals over a brutal attack featuring sexual violence caused right-wing protests and the arrest of Israel’s chief legal officer, with the accused individuals now demanding that charges against them are dropped.

No Legal Action

“In spite of this large quantity of casualties, during 24 months not one individual has faced arrest,” the official stated. “There are no prosecutions over any death.

“As long as these practices continue to be enforced, every Palestinian in custody faces risk, also the those in good health, also the juveniles who have no underlying conditions.”

Prominent Examples

Several casualties in detention have been widely reported, including a middle-aged medical chief who died in prison after four months in confinement.

A prisoner held with the victim testified that he was taken to the courtyard by prison staff shortly before his passing, clearly wounded and exposed from the lower body. His body has not been repatriated to Gaza.

Other prisoners who lost their lives in confinement by Israeli authorities remain anonymous. Correctional authorities and military provided analysts with the figure of deaths in detention, and minimal additional information for example the location where they died, but without the inmates’ personal details.

Recognition Difficulties

For 21 instances, primarily detainees from Gaza, analysts were not able to connect the few details given by government bodies to a casualty registered by advocacy bodies, by means of statements from released detainees or coverage in the press.

The detainees’ families might not have learned about their relatives’ casualties as well, as Israel has impeded efforts to locate Palestinian individuals it is holding. Over half a year at the start of the conflict, the Israeli military declined to give basic information about the whereabouts of thousands of persons detained in Gaza, practically implementing a policy of unacknowledged detention, as stated by the advocacy organization.

Restricted Access

From May 2024, authorities have established an electronic contact for requests about Palestinian individuals from Gaza, but this has resulted in merely a modest and inadequate improvement. Analysts noted|observed|commented on