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Based on data released by Israel, no fewer than 98 Palestinian individuals have perished during detention since October 2023. An advocacy organization based in Israel has indicated that the actual figure is probably significantly greater, as a result of hundreds of disappeared individuals in Gaza.

Study Results

An updated study documented fatalities attributed to physical violence, lack of healthcare, and malnutrition. Researchers used transparency petitions, autopsy findings, and testimonies with attorneys, advocates, next of kin, and observers.

Official sources released detailed information only for the first eight months of the hostilities. Over this period, government statistics show an record death toll among Palestinian prisoners, equating to a life lost once every four-day period.

Recent Figures

Israeli defense forces most recently revised data on detention fatalities for May 2024, and the prison service during September 2024. Researchers identified a further 35 fatalities in confinement after these periods and confirmed them with official sources.

Although the overall count of fatalities charted being significantly higher than previous assessments, it likely does not reflect the entire scope of Palestinian loss, according to the head of the prisoners and detainees department.

“Even though we are providing evidence for a larger total of deaths than previously reported, this is not a full picture,” he explained. “We are sure that there are still people who lost their lives in custody that we have not identified.”

Civilian Casualties

Confidential government records shows that the vast majority of Palestinian prisoners from Gaza who died in prison were ordinary citizens, based on a parallel inquiry.

In May of 2024, a defense forces registry monitoring all combatants in Gaza, a roster of more than 47,000 listed people, documented just 21 fatalities in custody. By that date, 65 Gazans from Gaza had lost their lives in prison.

Custodial Environment

Assault, torture, and other abuse of detainees from Palestine is now standard practice across Israel’s jail system over 24 months of conflict. High-ranking authorities have publicly acknowledged starvation rations and an subterranean prison holding Palestinian individuals who are denied sunlight.

Present and past prisoners and informants from the Israeli military have all alleged widespread breaches of international law.

Organized Maltreatment

The institutionalised cruelty was accompanied by a alarming increase in fatalities documented across at least 12 detention centers in Israel. In the decade prior to the hostilities, there were usually two or three casualties a year.

“This does not represent merely an isolated incident here and there. It is widespread and it is likely to persist,” an official commented, partly since there is a climate of almost complete immunity for killing and mistreating Palestinians.

Only a single instance of assaulting inmates has proceeded to court, with the military personnel handed a punishment to seven months. An effort to prosecute other suspects over a brutal attack featuring abuse resulted in political demonstrations and the arrest of Israel’s chief legal officer, with the accused individuals now insisting that indictments against them be dismissed.

No Legal Action

“In spite of this significant total of deaths, during 24 months not a single person has been arrested,” the representative noted. “There have been no indictments over any death.

“While these measures remain in effect, every Palestinian in confinement is at peril, even the physically well individuals, even the young ones who have no underlying conditions.”

Notable Incidents

Several casualties in confinement have been widely reported, for instance a 50-year-old medical chief who lost his life in confinement after four months in confinement.

A detainee detained alongside the deceased stated that he was brought to the yard by prison staff shortly before his death, visibly injured and exposed from the lower body. His corpse has not been returned to Gaza.

Other prisoners who perished in Israeli custody stay unnamed. Detention administrators and military provided investigators with the figure of deaths in confinement, and minimal other details including the site where they perished, but without the inmates’ personal details.

Recognition Difficulties

Regarding 21 occurrences, mainly individuals from Gaza, analysts were not able to correlate the limited information provided by authorities to a fatality documented by human rights groups, either through statements from freed prisoners or accounts in the press.

The prisoners’ relatives could be unaware about their loved ones’ deaths either, as Israel has made it difficult to track Palestinian individuals it is detaining. For seven months at the start of the hostilities, the armed services declined to provide essential data about the status of many of persons held in Gaza, effectively enacting a approach of involuntary missing persons, according to the advocacy organization.

Restricted Access

From May 2024, government bodies have provided an email address for requests about Palestinian individuals from Gaza, but this has resulted in merely a incomplete and restricted improvement. Analysts noted|observed|commented on