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Per data provided by Israel, a minimum of 98 Palestinians have lost their lives during detention since October 2023. A human rights group located in Israel has indicated that the true number is probably considerably larger, due to hundreds of missing individuals from Gaza.

Report Findings

A recent report recorded fatalities caused by physical violence, medical neglect, and inadequate nutrition. Researchers used transparency petitions, forensic reports, and discussions with attorneys, advocates, next of kin, and eyewitnesses.

Official sources released complete information only for the opening period of the conflict. During this time, government statistics show an historically high fatality rate among detained Palestinians, equating to one death every four days.

Updated Statistics

Official armed forces most recently revised information on deaths in detention for May 2024, and the prison service in September 2024. Investigators identified a further 35 casualties in detention after these periods and confirmed them with government bodies.

Even with the total number of deaths charted being much greater than previous assessments, it probably omits the full scale of Palestinian loss, as stated by the director of the prisoner monitoring division.

“While we are presenting proof for a greater figure of deaths than earlier indicated, this is an incomplete account,” he said. “We are certain that there are yet individuals who perished in custody that we have not identified.”

Civilian Casualties

Classified government records indicates that the majority of Palestinian prisoners from Gaza who lost their lives in prison were non-combatants, based on a related examination.

By May of the current year, a military intelligence database following all militants in Gaza, a list of more than 47,000 identified persons, documented only 21 deaths in confinement. By that point, 65 individuals from Palestine from Gaza had died in jail.

Detention Conditions

Physical violence, mistreatment, and additional maltreatment of detainees from Palestine has been normalised across Israel’s jail system throughout two years of war. High-ranking authorities have openly admitted inadequate food and an below-ground detention center detaining Palestinian individuals who never see daylight.

Present and past prisoners and informants from the armed services have collectively claimed widespread breaches of international law.

Organized Maltreatment

The institutionalised cruelty was accompanied by a troubling surge in fatalities documented across no fewer than 12 detention centers in Israel. In the decade before the hostilities, there were on average two or three deaths a year.

“This is not just an individual case here and there. It is institutional and it is likely to persist,” an official stated, partially because there is a environment of near total impunity for killing and mistreating detainees.

Just one case of assaulting prisoners has come to trial, with the military personnel sentenced to half a year. An effort to prosecute additional individuals over a vicious assault involving assault resulted in right-wing protests and the detention of Israel’s top military lawyer, with the suspects now demanding that charges against them are dropped.

Lack of Accountability

“Regardless of this significant total of deaths, during 24 months no one has faced arrest,” the spokesperson noted. “There are no indictments over any killing.

“While these policies remain in effect, each Palestinian individual in custody faces risk, also the physically well individuals, also the juveniles who have no underlying conditions.”

Prominent Examples

Some deaths in detention have been publicly known, including a 50-year-old medical chief who lost his life in prison after 120 days in custody.

A prisoner detained alongside the deceased stated that he was brought to the yard by correctional officers shortly before his demise, obviously hurt and naked from the waist down. His corpse remains unreleased to Gaza.

Further inmates who lost their lives in Israeli custody remain anonymous. Correctional authorities and military gave analysts with the total of deaths in detention, and limited other details including the location where they perished, but without the inmates’ personal details.

Documentation Problems

In 21 cases, mostly detainees from Gaza, analysts could not to match the limited information given by government bodies to a death documented by advocacy bodies, either through accounts from former inmates or accounts in the media.

The inmates’ next of kin could be unaware about their loved ones’ deaths as well, as Israel has created obstacles to monitor Palestinians it is holding. During 210 days at the start of the conflict, the armed services declined to supply fundamental details about the condition of thousands of persons held in Gaza, effectively carrying out a approach of unacknowledged detention, according to the rights monitoring body.

Restricted Access

Beginning last May, government bodies have established an email address for requests about detainees from Gaza, but this has provided only a modest and inadequate enhancement. Investigators noted|observed|commented on