🔗 Share this article

Per figures released by Israel, a minimum of 98 Palestinian individuals have perished while in custody beginning in October 2023. A rights monitoring body located in Israel has reported that the real toll is probably significantly larger, because of hundreds of disappeared detainees from Gaza.

Investigation Outcomes

A recent report tracked fatalities caused by physical violence, failure to provide medical care, and starvation. Investigators used freedom of information requests, medical examiner documents, and discussions with lawyers, advocates, relatives, and eyewitnesses.

Government bodies released complete data limited to the opening period of the war. Over this period, reported numbers reveal an unprecedented death toll among detained Palestinians, amounting to a single fatality every four days.

Latest Data

Israeli defense forces finalized records on deaths in detention for May 2024, and detention administration by September 2024. Investigators identified an additional 35 fatalities in confinement after these dates and validated them with official sources.

Despite the total number of casualties documented being substantially larger than previous assessments, it almost certainly fails to capture the full scale of losses among Palestinians, according to the director of the prisoner monitoring division.

“While we are offering documentation for a higher number of casualties than once estimated, this is not the entire story,” he stated. “We are sure that there are yet detainees who perished in confinement that we have not identified.”

Civilian Deaths

Restricted Israeli data shows that the majority of incarcerated Palestinians from Gaza who lost their lives in detention were non-combatants, per a related inquiry.

During May of the current year, a defense forces registry following all fighters in Gaza, a list of in excess of 47,000 named individuals, listed only 21 casualties in detention. By that date, 65 Palestinians from Gaza had perished in jail.

Detention Conditions

Physical violence, abuse, and additional maltreatment of Palestinian individuals has become routine across Israel’s jail system over the duration of hostilities. Senior officials have publicly referenced minimal sustenance and an underground jail holding detainees who are kept in darkness.

Current and former inmates and informants from the defense forces have collectively claimed routine infractions of global standards.

Organized Maltreatment

The organized mistreatment was accompanied by a troubling surge in fatalities documented across no fewer than 12 prison sites in Israel. In the decade prior to the hostilities, there were typically two or three deaths a year.

“This does not represent just an individual case sporadically. It is institutional and it is expected to endure,” a representative commented, partly due to the fact there is a culture of near total impunity for fatalities and maltreatment of Palestinians.

Just one case of assaulting detainees has come to trial, with the soldier sentenced to seven months. An attempt to prosecute additional individuals over a brutal attack including assault led to right-wing protests and the arrest of Israel’s top military lawyer, with the suspects now demanding that indictments against them be dismissed.

Lack of Accountability

“Despite this large quantity of fatalities, during 24 months not a single person has been arrested,” the spokesperson noted. “There exist no indictments over any death.

“As long as these measures continue to be enforced, every Palestinian in detention is at peril, also the physically well individuals, even the juveniles who have no medical issues.”

High-Profile Cases

Several casualties in detention have been publicly known, including a middle-aged medical chief who died in prison after a third of a year in detention.

An inmate held with the individual reported that he was taken to the exercise area by correctional officers immediately preceding his death, visibly injured and exposed from the waist down. His body has not been returned to Gaza.

Additional detainees who died in Israeli custody stay unnamed. Detention administrators and defense forces provided analysts with the figure of casualties in custody, and limited other details for example the facility where they lost their lives, but excluding the detainees’ identities.

Documentation Problems

In 21 cases, mainly people from Gaza, analysts were unable to match the few details provided by officials to a fatality documented by human rights groups, via statements from released detainees or coverage in the media.

The prisoners’ relatives might not have learned about their relatives’ casualties as well, as Israel has created obstacles to monitor Palestinian individuals it is detaining. For seven months at the beginning of the war, the armed services refused to give basic information about the status of thousands of people detained in Gaza, effectively implementing a policy of forced disappearance, as stated by the rights monitoring body.

Restricted Access

Beginning last May, government bodies have created an email address for enquiries about Palestinians from Gaza, but this has provided only a modest and inadequate improvement. Researchers noted|observed|commented on