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According to data provided by Israel, no fewer than 98 Palestinians have died while in custody starting from October 2023. A rights monitoring body operating from Israel has indicated that the true figure is likely substantially higher, because of hundreds of missing individuals in Gaza.

Report Findings

A new investigation documented casualties attributed to physical violence, failure to provide medical care, and inadequate nutrition. Analysts employed official data requests, medical examiner documents, and testimonies with attorneys, advocates, family members, and witnesses.

Government bodies disclosed detailed data limited to the opening period of the hostilities. During this time, government statistics show an historically high casualty rate among Palestinian detainees, averaging a single fatality every four days.

Updated Statistics

Official armed forces last updated data on detention fatalities for May 2024, and correctional authorities by September 2024. Investigators identified a further 35 fatalities in detention after these dates and verified them with official sources.

Despite the aggregate figure of deaths recorded being much greater than other recent estimates, it likely fails to capture the entire scope of losses among Palestinians, as stated by the director of the detainee affairs unit.

“Even though we are providing evidence for a higher number of fatalities than once estimated, this is not the entire story,” he explained. “We are sure that there are even now detainees who died in custody that we have not identified.”

Civilian Deaths

Restricted government records suggests that the largest portion of Palestinian prisoners from Gaza who perished in jail were ordinary citizens, according to a simultaneous inquiry.

In May of this year, a military intelligence database following all combatants in Gaza, a roster of in excess of 47,000 listed people, documented just 21 deaths in detention. By that point, 65 Gazans from Gaza had died in detention.

Custodial Environment

Physical violence, abuse, and other abuse of detainees from Palestine has been normalised across Israel’s jail system over 24 months of conflict. Senior officials have publicly referenced inadequate food and an underground jail holding detainees who never see daylight.

Present and past detainees and informants from the Israeli military have all alleged routine infractions of international law.

Institutionalized Cruelty

The organized mistreatment was accompanied by a alarming increase in casualties recorded across at least 12 civilian and military facilities in Israel. During the previous decade preceding the conflict, there were typically a couple fatalities a year.

“This isn’t just an individual case sporadically. It is institutional and it is likely to persist,” a spokesperson stated, partially because there is a culture of virtual exemption from consequences for harming and abusing Palestinians.

Only a single instance of assaulting prisoners has come to trial, with the soldier given a penalty to seven months. An attempt to prosecute other suspects over a brutal attack including assault caused political demonstrations and the detention of Israel’s top military lawyer, with the alleged perpetrators now requesting that indictments against them be dismissed.

No Legal Action

“Despite this mass number of casualties, over two years no one has been detained,” the representative noted. “There exist no prosecutions over any fatality.

“During the time these policies are being applied, every Palestinian in custody faces risk, also the healthy ones, even the young ones who have no underlying conditions.”

Prominent Examples

Several casualties in detention have been widely reported, including a middle-aged medical chief who perished in detention after four months in confinement.

A prisoner incarcerated with the individual testified that he was led to the courtyard by correctional officers shortly before his passing, visibly injured and exposed from the hips downward. His corpse remains unreleased to Gaza.

Further inmates who lost their lives in confinement by Israeli authorities remain anonymous. Correctional authorities and military provided investigators with the total of casualties in detention, and basic further data for example the site where they lost their lives, but not the inmates’ personal details.

Documentation Problems

In 21 cases, mostly individuals from Gaza, analysts could not to connect the limited information given by authorities to a death recorded by advocacy bodies, via testimony from former inmates or reporting in the media.

The prisoners’ relatives might not have learned about their family members’ fatalities also, as Israel has made it difficult to track detainees it is confining. During 210 days at the start of the war, the Israeli military refused to supply basic information about the status of thousands of people confined in Gaza, practically implementing a policy of forced disappearance, as stated by the rights monitoring body.

Restricted Access

From May 2024, government bodies have provided an email address for inquiries about Palestinian individuals from Gaza, but this has provided only a partial and limited improvement. Analysts noted|observed|commented on