🔗 Share this article

Based on data provided by Israel, no fewer than 98 Palestinian individuals have perished during detention since October 2023. An advocacy organization located in Israel has indicated that the actual number is probably considerably higher, due to hundreds of missing people from Gaza.

Report Findings

A recent report tracked deaths attributed to brutality, lack of healthcare, and inadequate nutrition. Researchers employed freedom of information requests, medical examiner documents, and discussions with lawyers, advocates, family members, and eyewitnesses.

Government bodies provided detailed data limited to the first eight months of the conflict. During this time, government statistics indicate an unprecedented casualty rate among Palestinian prisoners, amounting to a single fatality each 96 hours.

Latest Data

Israeli defense forces most recently revised data on deaths in detention for May 2024, and the prison service in September 2024. Investigators documented an additional 35 fatalities in custody after these timeframes and verified them with official sources.

Despite the overall count of deaths documented being significantly higher than previous assessments, it likely does not reflect the entire scope of losses among Palestinians, per the director of the prisoner monitoring division.

“Although we are providing evidence for a higher number of casualties than previously reported, this is an incomplete account,” he explained. “We are confident that there are still detainees who lost their lives in confinement that we are unaware of.”

Non-Combatant Fatalities

Restricted Israeli data suggests that the majority of Palestinian detainees from Gaza who lost their lives in prison were civilians, per a related inquiry.

In May of this year, a military intelligence database following all fighters in Gaza, a roster of over 47,000 identified persons, recorded only 21 deaths in confinement. By that point, 65 Gazans from Gaza had lost their lives in jail.

Custodial Environment

Assault, mistreatment, and further cruelty of Palestinians is now standard practice across Israel’s detention facilities throughout the duration of hostilities. Senior officials have publicly acknowledged minimal sustenance and an subterranean prison confining Palestinian individuals who are kept in darkness.

Existing and previous prisoners and insiders from the defense forces have all alleged widespread breaches of human rights protocols.

Organized Maltreatment

The institutionalised cruelty was accompanied by a troubling surge in casualties documented across a minimum of 12 civilian and military facilities in Israel. Over ten years before the hostilities, there were typically a couple casualties a year.

“This does not represent only a single occurrence sporadically. It is systemic and it is expected to endure,” an official said, partly because there is a climate of virtual exemption from consequences for harming and abusing detainees.

Only a single instance of assaulting detainees has proceeded to court, with the military personnel sentenced to seven months. An effort to charge additional individuals over a severe beating involving sexual violence resulted in public rallies and the detention of Israel’s top military lawyer, with the suspects now insisting that allegations against them be withdrawn.

Lack of Accountability

“Despite this large quantity of deaths, over two years not a single person has been detained,” the official said. “There exist no prosecutions over any fatality.

“During the time these practices are being applied, every Palestinian in confinement is in danger, including the those in good health, even the young ones who have no underlying conditions.”

High-Profile Cases

Several casualties in confinement have been widely reported, for instance a 50-year-old medical chief who perished in detention after a third of a year in confinement.

A prisoner incarcerated with the deceased reported that he was led to the yard by prison staff shortly before his demise, clearly wounded and unclothed from the waist down. His remains has not been returned to Gaza.

Further inmates who perished in confinement by Israeli authorities stay unnamed. Detention administrators and military provided analysts with the figure of fatalities in custody, and minimal additional information for example the site where they died, but without the inmates’ personal details.

Identification Challenges

In 21 cases, primarily individuals from Gaza, investigators were unable to correlate the minimal data given by officials to a casualty documented by human rights groups, via testimony from released detainees or reporting in the news outlets.

The prisoners’ relatives could be unaware about their loved ones’ deaths also, as Israel has impeded efforts to locate Palestinians it is holding. Over half a year at the start of the conflict, the Israeli military declined to provide fundamental details about the whereabouts of thousands of persons confined in Gaza, effectively enacting a approach of involuntary missing persons, according to the rights monitoring body.

Insufficient Disclosure

From May 2024, authorities have created an electronic contact for requests about Palestinians from Gaza, but this has led to just a incomplete and restricted improvement. Investigators noted|observed|commented on