🔗 Share this article

Based on figures released by Israel, a minimum of 98 Palestinian individuals have perished while in custody beginning in October 2023. A human rights group located in Israel has reported that the actual number is almost certainly considerably larger, as a result of many of missing detainees originating in Gaza.

Study Results

A recent report recorded deaths caused by assault, lack of healthcare, and starvation. Analysts employed official data requests, autopsy findings, and testimonies with attorneys, human rights defenders, next of kin, and observers.

Israeli authorities provided detailed data limited to the first eight months of the war. During this time, official figures indicate an historically high casualty rate among Palestinian prisoners, equating to a life lost every four days.

Latest Data

Israeli defense forces most recently revised data on custodial deaths for May 2024, and the prison service in September 2024. Investigators identified an additional 35 casualties in confinement following these periods and confirmed them with official sources.

Even with the aggregate figure of fatalities charted being much greater than previous assessments, it likely omits the entire scope of losses among Palestinians, per the leader of the prisoners and detainees department.

“Although we are presenting proof for a greater figure of fatalities than previously reported, this is not the entire story,” he explained. “We are sure that there are yet individuals who died in detention that we have not identified.”

Civilian Casualties

Classified Israeli data indicates that the majority of Palestinian prisoners from Gaza who died in detention were civilians, according to a parallel inquiry.

During May of this year, a military intelligence database monitoring all fighters in Gaza, a roster of in excess of 47,000 identified persons, documented merely 21 deaths in detention. At that time, 65 Gazans from Gaza had perished in jail.

Detention Conditions

Assault, mistreatment, and other abuse of detainees from Palestine is now standard practice across Israel’s jail system throughout 24 months of hostilities. Senior officials have publicly acknowledged minimal sustenance and an underground jail confining detainees who are kept in darkness.

Present and past detainees and informants from the defense forces have collectively claimed systemic violations of human rights protocols.

Institutionalized Cruelty

The systematic abuse came with a disturbing rise in fatalities recorded across a minimum of 12 civilian and military facilities in Israel. During the previous decade preceding the hostilities, there were on average two or three fatalities a year.

“This does not represent only a single occurrence occasionally. It is widespread and it will continue,” an official said, partly because there is a climate of almost complete immunity for fatalities and maltreatment of Palestinian individuals.

Just one case of assaulting inmates has come to trial, with the soldier handed a punishment to seven months. An effort to prosecute additional individuals over a vicious assault involving sexual violence resulted in right-wing protests and the detention of Israel’s senior defense attorney, with the accused individuals now demanding that allegations against them be withdrawn.

Lack of Accountability

“In spite of this large quantity of casualties, throughout the conflict no one has faced arrest,” the official said. “There have been no indictments over any killing.

“As long as these practices remain in effect, each Palestinian individual in custody faces risk, even the physically well individuals, including the juveniles who have no medical issues.”

Prominent Examples

Some deaths in detention have been widely reported, such as a 50-year-old healthcare leader who lost his life in prison after a third of a year in detention.

An inmate incarcerated with the deceased stated that he was brought to the yard by prison staff just prior to his passing, clearly wounded and naked from the hips downward. His remains has not been returned to Gaza.

Further inmates who died in confinement by Israeli authorities remain anonymous. Detention administrators and defense forces provided analysts with the figure of casualties in custody, and limited further data including the site where they died, but without the inmates’ personal details.

Identification Challenges

For 21 instances, mostly detainees from Gaza, researchers could not to correlate the few details given by authorities to a death documented by human rights groups, via accounts from former inmates or coverage in the media.

The detainees’ families could be unaware about their family members’ fatalities as well, as Israel has created obstacles to track detainees it is holding. Over half a year at the start of the conflict, the Israeli military refused to supply essential data about the whereabouts of numerous of persons held in Gaza, effectively implementing a practice of unacknowledged detention, according to the advocacy organization.

Restricted Access

From May 2024, government bodies have created an email address for enquiries about Palestinian individuals from Gaza, but this has resulted in merely a modest and inadequate enhancement. Investigators noted|observed|commented on