🔗 Share this article

Per data from Israel, no fewer than 98 Palestinian individuals have died while detained starting from October 2023. An advocacy organization operating from Israel has reported that the real figure is probably significantly larger, because of many of unaccounted for detainees originating in Gaza.

Investigation Outcomes

An updated study recorded deaths caused by physical violence, lack of healthcare, and malnutrition. Investigators used transparency petitions, forensic reports, and interviews with legal representatives, advocates, relatives, and witnesses.

Government bodies released detailed statistics solely covering the opening period of the hostilities. Over this period, official figures reveal an unprecedented casualty rate among Palestinian detainees, amounting to a life lost each 96 hours.

Recent Figures

Israeli defense forces last updated records on custodial deaths for May 2024, and the prison service by September 2024. Researchers documented another 35 fatalities in confinement following these periods and confirmed them with government bodies.

Although the total number of deaths recorded being significantly higher than previous assessments, it probably does not reflect the full scale of Palestinian loss, according to the leader of the prisoners and detainees department.

“Although we are presenting proof for a larger total of casualties than earlier indicated, this is not a full picture,” he stated. “We are certain that there are yet people who lost their lives in confinement that we are unaware of.”

Non-Combatant Fatalities

Confidential official information indicates that the largest portion of incarcerated Palestinians from Gaza who perished in prison were non-combatants, based on a parallel examination.

By May of the current year, a military intelligence database tracking all militants in Gaza, a registry of over 47,000 named individuals, recorded only 21 casualties in confinement. By that date, 65 individuals from Palestine from Gaza had lost their lives in jail.

Prison Situation

Brutality, abuse, and further cruelty of detainees from Palestine has been normalised across Israel’s detention facilities over the duration of war. Senior officials have publicly referenced starvation rations and an below-ground detention center holding detainees who are denied sunlight.

Present and past inmates and informants from the defense forces have collectively claimed routine infractions of global standards.

Systemic Abuse

The institutionalised cruelty was accompanied by a alarming increase in fatalities recorded across a minimum of 12 detention centers in Israel. In the decade prior to the hostilities, there were on average two or three casualties a year.

“This is not only a single occurrence here and there. It is systemic and it is expected to endure,” a representative said, partly since there is a climate of virtual exemption from consequences for fatalities and maltreatment of detainees.

Merely one incident of assaulting prisoners has reached litigation, with the service member given a penalty to 210 days. A endeavor to prosecute additional individuals over a brutal attack involving abuse resulted in public rallies and the apprehension of Israel’s senior defense attorney, with the suspects now demanding that allegations against them be withdrawn.

No Legal Action

“In spite of this mass number of fatalities, throughout the conflict not one individual has been arrested,” the official stated. “There exist no prosecutions over any fatality.

“During the time these measures are being applied, every Palestinian in detention faces risk, including the healthy ones, including the youth who have no underlying conditions.”

Notable Incidents

Some deaths in custody have been widely reported, for instance a middle-aged healthcare leader who perished in detention after four months in confinement.

A prisoner incarcerated with the deceased reported that he was brought to the courtyard by prison staff immediately preceding his death, clearly wounded and naked from the lower body. His remains has not been repatriated to Gaza.

Additional detainees who perished in detention in Israel are unidentified. Correctional authorities and defense forces gave analysts with the total of deaths in detention, and limited other details including the site where they died, but without the detainees’ identities.

Documentation Problems

For 21 instances, primarily individuals from Gaza, analysts were unable to correlate the limited information supplied by authorities to a fatality documented by advocacy bodies, via testimony from freed prisoners or coverage in the media.

The detainees’ families could be unaware about their loved ones’ deaths as well, as Israel has made it difficult to monitor detainees it is detaining. During 210 days at the outset of the war, the defense forces would not provide to give basic information about the whereabouts of thousands of individuals detained in Gaza, practically enacting a approach of unacknowledged detention, per the rights monitoring body.

Limited Transparency

From May 2024, officials have created an electronic contact for requests about detainees from Gaza, but this has provided only a partial and limited betterment. Investigators noted|observed|commented on