🔗 Share this article

Per figures provided by Israel, a minimum of 98 Palestinian individuals have died while detained since October 2023. A rights monitoring body based in Israel has reported that the actual number is likely substantially larger, as a result of numerous of missing people in Gaza.

Study Results

A recent report tracked casualties resulting from brutality, failure to provide medical care, and starvation. Investigators used official data requests, autopsy findings, and discussions with legal representatives, activists, next of kin, and witnesses.

Government bodies provided detailed information limited to the opening period of the conflict. During this time, official figures show an historically high death toll among Palestinian prisoners, equating to a life lost every four days.

Recent Figures

Official armed forces last updated data on detention fatalities for May 2024, and the prison service by September 2024. Analysts identified a further 35 casualties in confinement after these periods and validated them with Israeli authorities.

Although the overall count of deaths charted being significantly higher than other recent estimates, it almost certainly does not reflect the full scale of Palestinian casualties, according to the director of the prisoner monitoring division.

“While we are presenting proof for a higher number of casualties than once estimated, this is an incomplete account,” he said. “We are certain that there are still detainees who died in confinement that we don’t know about.”

Civilian Casualties

Confidential government records suggests that the vast majority of Palestinian prisoners from Gaza who perished in detention were non-combatants, according to a simultaneous investigation.

During May of 2024, a armed services record monitoring all combatants in Gaza, a list of over 47,000 listed people, documented merely 21 fatalities in confinement. By that point, 65 Palestinians from Gaza had died in jail.

Custodial Environment

Physical violence, torture, and further cruelty of Palestinian individuals is now standard practice across Israel’s detention facilities during 24 months of hostilities. High-ranking authorities have publicly acknowledged inadequate food and an underground jail holding detainees who are kept in darkness.

Present and past inmates and informants from the Israeli military have uniformly asserted systemic violations of human rights protocols.

Organized Maltreatment

The organized mistreatment occurred alongside a disturbing rise in deaths recorded across no fewer than 12 detention centers in Israel. In the decade preceding the conflict, there were typically several fatalities a year.

“This is not merely an isolated incident sporadically. It is systemic and it is expected to endure,” a representative commented, in part since there is a climate of almost complete immunity for harming and abusing Palestinians.

Only a single instance of beating inmates has proceeded to court, with the service member handed a punishment to half a year. An attempt to try other suspects over a brutal attack featuring sexual violence resulted in political demonstrations and the apprehension of Israel’s chief legal officer, with the accused individuals now insisting that charges against them are dropped.

No Legal Action

“In spite of this mass number of deaths, over two years not one individual has faced arrest,” the representative stated. “There have been no indictments over any fatality.

“During the time these measures are being applied, all Palestinian detainees in confinement is in danger, including the physically well individuals, also the youth who have no medical issues.”

Prominent Examples

Some deaths in confinement have been high profile, for instance a 50-year-old hospital director who lost his life in detention after 120 days in confinement.

An inmate detained alongside the individual stated that he was taken to the exercise area by prison staff immediately preceding his passing, visibly injured and exposed from the waist down. His remains remains unreleased to Gaza.

Other prisoners who died in Israeli custody stay unnamed. Correctional authorities and military gave analysts with the total of fatalities in detention, and minimal additional information for example the site where they perished, but not the detainees’ identities.

Recognition Difficulties

Regarding 21 occurrences, mainly people from Gaza, investigators were unable to match the few details provided by authorities to a casualty registered by rights organisations, either through testimony from former inmates or coverage in the press.

The detainees’ families may not know about their loved ones’ deaths either, as Israel has made it difficult to track Palestinians it is holding. For seven months at the start of the hostilities, the armed services refused to supply basic information about the condition of many of individuals confined in Gaza, practically enacting a practice of involuntary missing persons, per the rights monitoring body.

Insufficient Disclosure

Starting in May 2024, officials have created an email address for enquiries about Palestinian individuals from Gaza, but this has resulted in merely a partial and limited enhancement. Investigators noted|observed|commented on