🔗 Share this article

According to information provided by Israel, at least 98 Palestinians have died while detained starting from October 2023. An advocacy organization based in Israel has reported that the actual figure is likely significantly higher, because of hundreds of missing people originating in Gaza.

Study Results

A new investigation recorded fatalities resulting from brutality, failure to provide medical care, and malnutrition. Researchers used transparency petitions, forensic reports, and interviews with lawyers, human rights defenders, next of kin, and witnesses.

Government bodies provided comprehensive information only for the initial 240 days of the war. Throughout these months, reported numbers show an unprecedented fatality rate among Palestinian detainees, averaging a life lost every four days.

Latest Data

Official armed forces finalized records on detention fatalities for May 2024, and correctional authorities during September 2024. Investigators documented an additional 35 deaths in detention after these dates and confirmed them with government bodies.

Despite the overall count of casualties charted being substantially larger than other recent estimates, it likely fails to capture the full scale of losses among Palestinians, according to the director of the detainee affairs unit.

“While we are presenting proof for a greater figure of fatalities than previously reported, this is not the entire story,” he said. “We are certain that there are still individuals who died in confinement that we don’t know about.”

Civilian Deaths

Restricted official information shows that the largest portion of Palestinian detainees from Gaza who lost their lives in prison were civilians, according to a parallel inquiry.

During May of 2024, a armed services record following all combatants in Gaza, a list of in excess of 47,000 named individuals, documented only 21 deaths in custody. By that date, 65 individuals from Palestine from Gaza had lost their lives in detention.

Custodial Environment

Brutality, abuse, and other abuse of detainees from Palestine has been normalised across Israel’s prison network throughout the duration of war. Senior officials have openly admitted inadequate food and an underground jail holding Palestinians who are kept in darkness.

Present and past inmates and whistleblowers from the Israeli military have all alleged systemic violations of human rights protocols.

Organized Maltreatment

The systematic abuse was accompanied by a alarming increase in fatalities documented across no fewer than 12 civilian and military facilities in Israel. Over ten years preceding the conflict, there were on average a couple casualties a year.

“This is not just an individual case occasionally. It is institutional and it is likely to persist,” a spokesperson said, partially due to the fact there is a environment of near total impunity for killing and mistreating detainees.

Just one case of attacking detainees has proceeded to court, with the soldier sentenced to seven months. An attempt to prosecute other suspects over a vicious assault including sexual violence led to public rallies and the arrest of Israel’s senior defense attorney, with the alleged perpetrators now requesting that allegations against them be dismissed.

No Legal Action

“In spite of this mass number of deaths, throughout the conflict not a single person has been detained,” the spokesperson said. “There are no prosecutions over any fatality.

“While these measures are being applied, each Palestinian individual in detention is in danger, including the physically well individuals, also the juveniles who have no health problems.”

Notable Incidents

Several casualties in custody have been publicly known, for instance a middle-aged medical chief who perished in prison after a third of a year in custody.

A detainee detained alongside the deceased testified that he was led to the courtyard by correctional officers just prior to his demise, obviously hurt and exposed from the lower body. His corpse has not been repatriated to Gaza.

Further inmates who died in confinement by Israeli authorities stay unnamed. Detention administrators and military gave researchers with the number of casualties in detention, and minimal other details for example the facility where they died, but not the prisoners’ names.

Identification Challenges

In 21 cases, mainly detainees from Gaza, analysts were not able to match the few details supplied by authorities to a casualty registered by advocacy bodies, via accounts from released detainees or reporting in the media.

The detainees’ families may not know about their relatives’ casualties as well, as Israel has made it difficult to track detainees it is confining. During 210 days at the start of the hostilities, the Israeli military refused to provide fundamental details about the condition of many of persons held in Gaza, effectively carrying out a policy of involuntary missing persons, per the rights monitoring body.

Limited Transparency

Starting in May 2024, authorities have provided an digital correspondence for inquiries about detainees from Gaza, but this has led to just a incomplete and restricted betterment. Analysts noted|observed|commented on