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According to information from Israel, a minimum of 98 detainees from Palestine have lost their lives while in custody since October 2023. An advocacy organization operating from Israel has indicated that the real toll is almost certainly substantially larger, due to many of missing individuals originating in Gaza.

Investigation Outcomes

A recent report tracked casualties attributed to physical violence, failure to provide medical care, and inadequate nutrition. Investigators used freedom of information requests, medical examiner documents, and interviews with legal representatives, human rights defenders, relatives, and witnesses.

Israeli authorities disclosed detailed information only for the opening period of the war. Over this period, government statistics reveal an unprecedented fatality rate among Palestinian detainees, amounting to a life lost once every four-day period.

Updated Statistics

Israeli defense forces last updated data on detention fatalities for May 2024, and correctional authorities in September 2024. Analysts identified a further 35 fatalities in detention following these periods and validated them with government bodies.

Although the total number of fatalities documented being significantly higher than other recent estimates, it probably does not reflect the full scale of losses among Palestinians, according to the director of the prisoners and detainees department.

“While we are offering documentation for a larger total of casualties than once estimated, this is not a full picture,” he explained. “We are confident that there are still individuals who lost their lives in confinement that we have not identified.”

Civilian Casualties

Confidential government records indicates that the largest portion of Palestinian prisoners from Gaza who lost their lives in prison were non-combatants, based on a simultaneous examination.

During May of this year, a military intelligence database following all combatants in Gaza, a list of over 47,000 listed people, listed only 21 casualties in confinement. By that date, 65 Palestinians from Gaza had lost their lives in prison.

Detention Conditions

Assault, abuse, and other abuse of Palestinians has become routine across Israel’s prison network throughout the duration of hostilities. High-ranking authorities have openly admitted minimal sustenance and an subterranean prison holding Palestinians who are denied sunlight.

Current and former detainees and insiders from the armed services have all alleged systemic violations of international law.

Systemic Abuse

The institutionalised cruelty occurred alongside a disturbing rise in casualties registered across no fewer than 12 detention centers in Israel. In the decade preceding the conflict, there were on average several deaths a year.

“This is not merely an isolated incident sporadically. It is institutional and it is likely to persist,” an official stated, in part because there is a climate of virtual exemption from consequences for harming and abusing Palestinian individuals.

Merely one incident of assaulting prisoners has reached litigation, with the service member handed a punishment to 210 days. An effort to try other suspects over a brutal attack featuring abuse led to political demonstrations and the detention of Israel’s top military lawyer, with the accused individuals now insisting that indictments against them are dropped.

Absence of Consequences

“Despite this mass number of casualties, over two years no one has been arrested,” the official stated. “There exist no charges over any death.

“While these measures continue to be enforced, each Palestinian individual in custody is at peril, even the those in good health, including the young ones who have no underlying conditions.”

Prominent Examples

Certain fatalities in detention have been publicly known, including a 50-year-old healthcare leader who perished in confinement after a third of a year in confinement.

A detainee incarcerated with the individual stated that he was led to the yard by correctional officers just prior to his demise, visibly injured and exposed from the hips downward. His body has not been repatriated to Gaza.

Further inmates who perished in Israeli custody are unidentified. The prison service and defense forces provided investigators with the figure of fatalities in detention, and minimal other details including the site where they perished, but not the detainees’ identities.

Recognition Difficulties

Regarding 21 occurrences, mainly detainees from Gaza, investigators were unable to correlate the limited information provided by government bodies to a fatality documented by advocacy bodies, via statements from former inmates or coverage in the media.

The detainees’ families may not know about their relatives’ casualties either, as Israel has impeded efforts to monitor Palestinians it is confining. Over half a year at the start of the conflict, the Israeli military refused to supply basic information about the whereabouts of numerous of individuals detained in Gaza, effectively enacting a practice of involuntary missing persons, per the advocacy organization.

Insufficient Disclosure

Beginning last May, authorities have provided an electronic contact for inquiries about Palestinian individuals from Gaza, but this has resulted in merely a modest and inadequate improvement. Investigators noted|observed|commented on