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According to information released by Israel, at least 98 Palestinian individuals have lost their lives while detained since October 2023. An advocacy organization operating from Israel has reported that the true figure is probably significantly larger, because of many of disappeared detainees from Gaza.

Study Results

A new investigation tracked casualties resulting from brutality, lack of healthcare, and starvation. Analysts used official data requests, forensic reports, and discussions with legal representatives, advocates, family members, and witnesses.

Government bodies released comprehensive information limited to the first eight months of the hostilities. Throughout these months, reported numbers reveal an unprecedented casualty rate among Palestinian prisoners, averaging a single fatality every four days.

Updated Statistics

The military finalized information on custodial deaths for May 2024, and the prison service by September 2024. Researchers discovered a further 35 casualties in detention subsequent to these timeframes and verified them with official sources.

Although the aggregate figure of deaths charted being significantly higher than earlier projections, it likely fails to capture the full scale of Palestinian loss, per the leader of the detainee affairs unit.

“While we are offering documentation for a larger total of deaths than once estimated, this is not the entire story,” he said. “We are certain that there are even now detainees who perished in confinement that we have not identified.”

Non-Combatant Fatalities

Restricted Israeli data indicates that the vast majority of incarcerated Palestinians from Gaza who perished in detention were non-combatants, based on a related inquiry.

By May of 2024, a armed services record tracking all militants in Gaza, a registry of over 47,000 identified persons, listed only 21 fatalities in custody. By that point, 65 individuals from Palestine from Gaza had perished in prison.

Custodial Environment

Physical violence, abuse, and further cruelty of Palestinians has become routine across Israel’s prison network throughout 24 months of war. High-ranking authorities have publicly referenced minimal sustenance and an subterranean prison holding detainees who never see daylight.

Current and former inmates and informants from the armed services have uniformly asserted widespread breaches of international law.

Systemic Abuse

The systematic abuse was accompanied by a alarming increase in casualties documented across at least 12 detention centers in Israel. Over ten years prior to the hostilities, there were on average two or three casualties a year.

“This isn’t just an individual case sporadically. It is widespread and it is expected to endure,” an official commented, partially because there is a culture of almost complete immunity for fatalities and maltreatment of detainees.

Just one case of assaulting inmates has come to trial, with the military personnel handed a punishment to seven months. An attempt to prosecute other suspects over a vicious assault including sexual violence led to political demonstrations and the arrest of Israel’s senior defense attorney, with the accused individuals now insisting that indictments against them be withdrawn.

Lack of Accountability

“In spite of this large quantity of fatalities, throughout the conflict not one individual has been arrested,” the spokesperson stated. “There are no indictments over any death.

“While these policies remain in effect, each Palestinian individual in custody is in danger, also the those in good health, even the youth who have no medical issues.”

Prominent Examples

Some deaths in custody have been high profile, including a senior medical chief who perished in confinement after a third of a year in confinement.

An inmate detained alongside the deceased stated that he was brought to the courtyard by correctional officers just prior to his death, clearly wounded and unclothed from the lower body. His body has not been returned to Gaza.

Other prisoners who lost their lives in confinement by Israeli authorities stay unnamed. The prison service and military provided researchers with the number of casualties in detention, and limited additional information such as the facility where they lost their lives, but not the detainees’ identities.

Identification Challenges

Regarding 21 occurrences, primarily detainees from Gaza, analysts were unable to connect the few details provided by authorities to a fatality recorded by advocacy bodies, either through testimony from released detainees or accounts in the news outlets.

The prisoners’ relatives could be unaware about their loved ones’ deaths also, as Israel has impeded efforts to monitor detainees it is holding. For seven months at the outset of the war, the defense forces refused to provide essential data about the condition of many of people confined in Gaza, in effect carrying out a policy of unacknowledged detention, per the advocacy organization.

Restricted Access

From May 2024, government bodies have established an digital correspondence for inquiries about Palestinians from Gaza, but this has led to just a partial and limited betterment. Analysts noted|observed|commented on