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Based on data provided by Israel, a minimum of 98 Palestinian individuals have lost their lives during detention beginning in October 2023. An advocacy organization located in Israel has indicated that the true figure is probably substantially higher, due to many of disappeared people from Gaza.

Report Findings

An updated study tracked deaths attributed to assault, lack of healthcare, and inadequate nutrition. Analysts utilized transparency petitions, medical examiner documents, and interviews with attorneys, activists, family members, and witnesses.

Israeli authorities disclosed complete statistics only for the initial 240 days of the conflict. Over this period, reported numbers show an unprecedented death toll among Palestinian detainees, equating to a single fatality once every four-day period.

Latest Data

Official armed forces most recently revised information on custodial deaths for May 2024, and correctional authorities by September 2024. Analysts documented an additional 35 fatalities in custody following these timeframes and verified them with government bodies.

Despite the total number of casualties recorded being much greater than earlier projections, it likely omits the full scale of losses among Palestinians, according to the leader of the prisoners and detainees department.

“Although we are offering documentation for a greater figure of deaths than once estimated, this is not a full picture,” he said. “We are sure that there are even now people who lost their lives in custody that we don’t know about.”

Civilian Casualties

Restricted government records indicates that the vast majority of incarcerated Palestinians from Gaza who lost their lives in jail were ordinary citizens, per a simultaneous inquiry.

In May of this year, a military intelligence database following all fighters in Gaza, a list of over 47,000 named individuals, documented just 21 deaths in custody. By that point, 65 Gazans from Gaza had perished in jail.

Prison Situation

Brutality, torture, and further cruelty of Palestinian individuals is now standard practice across Israel’s detention facilities over the duration of war. High-ranking authorities have openly admitted starvation rations and an below-ground detention center confining detainees who never see daylight.

Current and former prisoners and insiders from the armed services have uniformly asserted systemic violations of global standards.

Organized Maltreatment

The systematic abuse occurred alongside a troubling surge in casualties recorded across no fewer than 12 prison sites in Israel. In the decade preceding the hostilities, there were on average two or three fatalities a year.

“This does not represent only a single occurrence sporadically. It is widespread and it is expected to endure,” a representative stated, partially because there is a climate of virtual exemption from consequences for fatalities and maltreatment of Palestinian individuals.

Just one case of attacking detainees has proceeded to court, with the service member handed a punishment to 210 days. An attempt to prosecute others over a vicious assault featuring sexual violence caused political demonstrations and the detention of Israel’s chief legal officer, with the suspects now insisting that indictments against them be withdrawn.

Absence of Consequences

“Regardless of this significant total of casualties, over two years no one has faced arrest,” the spokesperson noted. “There exist no charges over any death.

“During the time these policies remain in effect, every Palestinian in custody is at peril, including the physically well individuals, including the young ones who have no underlying conditions.”

Prominent Examples

Some deaths in detention have been widely reported, such as a middle-aged medical chief who lost his life in detention after four months in detention.

A detainee detained alongside the victim reported that he was led to the courtyard by guards just prior to his passing, clearly wounded and unclothed from the waist down. His corpse has not been repatriated to Gaza.

Further inmates who died in confinement by Israeli authorities are unidentified. The prison service and military supplied researchers with the number of fatalities in confinement, and basic additional information for example the facility where they died, but not the detainees’ identities.

Recognition Difficulties

In 21 cases, primarily individuals from Gaza, analysts were not able to connect the few details given by authorities to a death registered by advocacy bodies, via testimony from former inmates or accounts in the press.

The prisoners’ relatives may not know about their relatives’ casualties as well, as Israel has made it difficult to monitor Palestinians it is confining. For seven months at the start of the war, the Israeli military refused to supply basic information about the status of many of people detained in Gaza, in effect carrying out a policy of involuntary missing persons, as stated by the advocacy organization.

Restricted Access

Beginning last May, officials have created an digital correspondence for requests about detainees from Gaza, but this has provided only a modest and inadequate enhancement. Researchers noted|observed|commented on