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According to data released by Israel, at least 98 Palestinians have lost their lives while in custody since October 2023. A human rights group based in Israel has reported that the actual figure is likely considerably larger, due to many of missing people in Gaza.

Study Results

A new investigation documented fatalities caused by physical violence, failure to provide medical care, and starvation. Researchers utilized official data requests, autopsy findings, and interviews with lawyers, advocates, family members, and eyewitnesses.

Government bodies provided detailed information only for the first eight months of the conflict. Over this period, government statistics reveal an historically high death toll among detained Palestinians, averaging a single fatality once every four-day period.

Latest Data

Official armed forces most recently revised data on deaths in detention for May 2024, and correctional authorities by September 2024. Researchers identified another 35 casualties in detention subsequent to these dates and confirmed them with Israeli authorities.

Although the total number of fatalities charted being significantly higher than other recent estimates, it almost certainly fails to capture the entire scope of Palestinian casualties, as stated by the leader of the prisoners and detainees department.

“Even though we are offering documentation for a higher number of fatalities than once estimated, this is not a full picture,” he explained. “We are certain that there are even now people who lost their lives in custody that we are unaware of.”

Non-Combatant Fatalities

Classified Israeli data shows that the vast majority of Palestinian detainees from Gaza who died in detention were civilians, based on a simultaneous examination.

In May of this year, a military intelligence database tracking all fighters in Gaza, a list of more than 47,000 identified persons, documented just 21 fatalities in confinement. By that point, 65 individuals from Palestine from Gaza had died in prison.

Detention Conditions

Physical violence, abuse, and additional maltreatment of detainees from Palestine has been normalised across Israel’s jail system over two years of conflict. Senior officials have openly admitted inadequate food and an below-ground detention center confining Palestinian individuals who are kept in darkness.

Present and past prisoners and whistleblowers from the defense forces have uniformly asserted systemic violations of human rights protocols.

Systemic Abuse

The organized mistreatment was accompanied by a troubling surge in casualties documented across no fewer than 12 prison sites in Israel. During the previous decade before the hostilities, there were usually two or three fatalities a year.

“This is not merely an isolated incident occasionally. It is systemic and it is expected to endure,” a representative said, partially since there is a culture of almost complete immunity for killing and mistreating Palestinians.

Only a single instance of attacking prisoners has proceeded to court, with the soldier given a penalty to 210 days. A endeavor to prosecute others over a brutal attack including sexual violence led to public rallies and the apprehension of Israel’s top military lawyer, with the suspects now requesting that indictments against them be withdrawn.

Absence of Consequences

“Regardless of this large quantity of casualties, during 24 months not a single person has been arrested,” the spokesperson noted. “There are no prosecutions over any death.

“During the time these practices are being applied, each Palestinian individual in confinement is at peril, including the healthy ones, even the young ones who have no underlying conditions.”

Notable Incidents

Certain fatalities in custody have been publicly known, such as a middle-aged hospital director who lost his life in prison after four months in detention.

A prisoner detained alongside the deceased testified that he was taken to the yard by guards immediately preceding his demise, clearly wounded and unclothed from the waist down. His body remains unreleased to Gaza.

Further inmates who died in detention in Israel are unidentified. Detention administrators and armed services provided researchers with the number of deaths in detention, and minimal further data such as the site where they died, but excluding the inmates’ personal details.

Identification Challenges

In 21 cases, mostly detainees from Gaza, investigators could not to connect the few details provided by authorities to a fatality registered by human rights groups, via statements from former inmates or coverage in the news outlets.

The detainees’ families may not know about their relatives’ casualties either, as Israel has created obstacles to track Palestinians it is confining. For seven months at the outset of the conflict, the Israeli military declined to give essential data about the condition of thousands of individuals held in Gaza, effectively implementing a policy of involuntary missing persons, according to the advocacy organization.

Limited Transparency

Beginning last May, authorities have provided an email address for inquiries about Palestinian individuals from Gaza, but this has resulted in merely a modest and inadequate betterment. Investigators noted|observed|commented on