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Based on figures released by Israel, a minimum of 98 Palestinian individuals have died while detained starting from October 2023. A rights monitoring body operating from Israel has reported that the actual number is probably substantially larger, as a result of hundreds of unaccounted for individuals from Gaza.

Study Results

A recent report documented deaths resulting from physical violence, medical neglect, and inadequate nutrition. Analysts used transparency petitions, forensic reports, and testimonies with lawyers, activists, relatives, and observers.

Israeli authorities provided detailed information solely covering the opening period of the war. Throughout these months, official figures show an record fatality rate among Palestinian detainees, averaging a single fatality once every four-day period.

Latest Data

Official armed forces finalized information on detention fatalities for May 2024, and the prison service in September 2024. Researchers documented a further 35 casualties in detention following these periods and verified them with official sources.

Despite the aggregate figure of deaths recorded being substantially larger than earlier projections, it probably does not reflect the complete extent of Palestinian loss, per the leader of the detainee affairs unit.

“While we are offering documentation for a greater figure of casualties than once estimated, this is not the entire story,” he said. “We are confident that there are still individuals who perished in confinement that we don’t know about.”

Civilian Casualties

Restricted government records suggests that the vast majority of Palestinian prisoners from Gaza who lost their lives in jail were civilians, based on a related investigation.

In May of this year, a armed services record following all militants in Gaza, a registry of over 47,000 listed people, listed only 21 fatalities in confinement. By that point, 65 Palestinians from Gaza had perished in jail.

Detention Conditions

Assault, mistreatment, and additional maltreatment of detainees from Palestine has become routine across Israel’s prison network throughout two years of conflict. Top government figures have publicly referenced inadequate food and an below-ground detention center holding Palestinian individuals who are kept in darkness.

Present and past detainees and insiders from the defense forces have all alleged systemic violations of human rights protocols.

Institutionalized Cruelty

The institutionalised cruelty was accompanied by a alarming increase in deaths registered across a minimum of 12 detention centers in Israel. Over ten years prior to the war, there were on average two or three deaths a year.

“This does not represent just an individual case here and there. It is systemic and it is likely to persist,” a representative stated, in part because there is a climate of almost complete immunity for harming and abusing Palestinian individuals.

Only a single instance of assaulting inmates has reached litigation, with the service member sentenced to seven months. An attempt to try other suspects over a brutal attack including sexual violence caused public rallies and the arrest of Israel’s top military lawyer, with the alleged perpetrators now requesting that charges against them be withdrawn.

Lack of Accountability

“In spite of this significant total of fatalities, over two years no one has been arrested,” the official said. “There have been no charges over any killing.

“While these measures are being applied, each Palestinian individual in detention is in danger, including the healthy ones, including the young ones who have no health problems.”

Notable Incidents

Several casualties in detention have been widely reported, including a middle-aged hospital director who died in detention after 120 days in detention.

A prisoner detained alongside the individual testified that he was taken to the yard by prison staff just prior to his passing, visibly injured and unclothed from the waist down. His body has not been returned to Gaza.

Additional detainees who died in detention in Israel are unidentified. Correctional authorities and defense forces gave investigators with the number of deaths in confinement, and minimal further data including the facility where they died, but excluding the prisoners’ names.

Identification Challenges

For 21 instances, mostly people from Gaza, investigators were not able to match the few details provided by government bodies to a casualty recorded by rights organisations, either through accounts from released detainees or accounts in the media.

The detainees’ families might not have learned about their relatives’ casualties also, as Israel has made it difficult to locate Palestinians it is holding. Over half a year at the outset of the war, the armed services declined to give basic information about the whereabouts of numerous of individuals held in Gaza, practically implementing a approach of involuntary missing persons, per the rights monitoring body.

Limited Transparency

From May 2024, authorities have created an email address for enquiries about detainees from Gaza, but this has provided only a incomplete and restricted improvement. Researchers noted|observed|commented on