🔗 Share this article

Per data from Israel, a minimum of 98 Palestinians have died while in custody beginning in October 2023. A rights monitoring body based in Israel has indicated that the actual number is almost certainly substantially greater, because of hundreds of unaccounted for detainees originating in Gaza.

Investigation Outcomes

A new investigation documented casualties resulting from physical violence, lack of healthcare, and malnutrition. Investigators used freedom of information requests, autopsy findings, and testimonies with legal representatives, advocates, relatives, and witnesses.

Israeli authorities provided complete information limited to the first eight months of the conflict. During this time, government statistics show an historically high casualty rate among detained Palestinians, amounting to one death each 96 hours.

Updated Statistics

Israeli defense forces most recently revised data on detention fatalities for May 2024, and correctional authorities by September 2024. Investigators identified another 35 fatalities in detention subsequent to these dates and verified them with Israeli authorities.

Even with the total number of deaths recorded being significantly higher than previous assessments, it probably does not reflect the entire scope of Palestinian loss, as stated by the head of the prisoners and detainees department.

“While we are offering documentation for a higher number of casualties than previously reported, this is an incomplete account,” he stated. “We are confident that there are yet individuals who perished in confinement that we are unaware of.”

Non-Combatant Fatalities

Confidential government records indicates that the vast majority of incarcerated Palestinians from Gaza who lost their lives in jail were civilians, per a related inquiry.

In May of the current year, a armed services record tracking all militants in Gaza, a list of in excess of 47,000 identified persons, documented just 21 fatalities in confinement. By that point, 65 Gazans from Gaza had died in detention.

Prison Situation

Assault, abuse, and other abuse of detainees from Palestine has become routine across Israel’s detention facilities throughout 24 months of conflict. Senior officials have openly admitted inadequate food and an below-ground detention center holding detainees who never see daylight.

Existing and previous prisoners and whistleblowers from the Israeli military have uniformly asserted systemic violations of human rights protocols.

Systemic Abuse

The systematic abuse occurred alongside a alarming increase in fatalities recorded across a minimum of 12 detention centers in Israel. In the decade prior to the war, there were on average two or three fatalities a year.

“This is not just an individual case occasionally. It is widespread and it will continue,” an official commented, partly because there is a climate of near total impunity for killing and mistreating detainees.

Only a single instance of beating detainees has proceeded to court, with the service member handed a punishment to half a year. An attempt to try others over a severe beating involving abuse caused right-wing protests and the detention of Israel’s senior defense attorney, with the alleged perpetrators now insisting that allegations against them are dropped.

No Legal Action

“Despite this significant total of casualties, during 24 months no one has faced arrest,” the official said. “There have been no indictments over any death.

“As long as these practices continue to be enforced, all Palestinian detainees in detention faces risk, also the healthy ones, even the juveniles who have no medical issues.”

Prominent Examples

Certain fatalities in confinement have been widely reported, for instance a senior hospital director who perished in detention after a third of a year in detention.

An inmate held with the individual stated that he was taken to the yard by guards shortly before his demise, obviously hurt and naked from the hips downward. His remains has not been repatriated to Gaza.

Additional detainees who perished in Israeli custody stay unnamed. The prison service and armed services provided investigators with the total of casualties in detention, and basic further data such as the location where they lost their lives, but not the prisoners’ names.

Documentation Problems

Regarding 21 occurrences, mainly detainees from Gaza, analysts were not able to match the minimal data given by government bodies to a fatality documented by advocacy bodies, via statements from freed prisoners or reporting in the media.

The prisoners’ relatives might not have learned about their loved ones’ deaths as well, as Israel has created obstacles to locate Palestinians it is confining. For seven months at the outset of the war, the Israeli military refused to give basic information about the condition of many of individuals confined in Gaza, practically implementing a policy of involuntary missing persons, according to the rights monitoring body.

Insufficient Disclosure

Starting in May 2024, authorities have established an digital correspondence for requests about detainees from Gaza, but this has provided only a incomplete and restricted improvement. Investigators noted|observed|commented on