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Based on information from Israel, a minimum of 98 Palestinians have lost their lives while detained beginning in October 2023. A rights monitoring body based in Israel has stated that the true figure is probably significantly higher, as a result of numerous of disappeared detainees in Gaza.

Study Results

A new investigation recorded casualties attributed to physical violence, failure to provide medical care, and starvation. Researchers used transparency petitions, autopsy findings, and discussions with legal representatives, human rights defenders, relatives, and eyewitnesses.

Government bodies disclosed complete information limited to the opening period of the hostilities. Over this period, reported numbers show an record casualty rate among Palestinian prisoners, averaging one death each 96 hours.

Updated Statistics

Israeli defense forces last updated information on deaths in detention for May 2024, and detention administration during September 2024. Researchers discovered an additional 35 casualties in custody after these dates and confirmed them with official sources.

Even with the aggregate figure of fatalities charted being significantly higher than earlier projections, it probably omits the entire scope of Palestinian loss, as stated by the leader of the prisoner monitoring division.

“Although we are offering documentation for a larger total of casualties than earlier indicated, this is not a full picture,” he said. “We are confident that there are yet detainees who died in custody that we have not identified.”

Non-Combatant Fatalities

Restricted official information suggests that the largest portion of Palestinian prisoners from Gaza who lost their lives in jail were non-combatants, based on a related investigation.

During May of 2024, a armed services record following all militants in Gaza, a registry of more than 47,000 listed people, recorded just 21 casualties in custody. At that time, 65 Palestinians from Gaza had perished in jail.

Custodial Environment

Assault, abuse, and additional maltreatment of Palestinians has become routine across Israel’s jail system over two years of war. Top government figures have publicly acknowledged inadequate food and an underground jail holding Palestinians who are denied sunlight.

Existing and previous prisoners and informants from the defense forces have collectively claimed widespread breaches of international law.

Systemic Abuse

The organized mistreatment was accompanied by a alarming increase in casualties registered across a minimum of 12 prison sites in Israel. During the previous decade before the conflict, there were typically several deaths a year.

“This isn’t merely an isolated incident here and there. It is institutional and it is likely to persist,” an official stated, partly since there is a environment of almost complete immunity for harming and abusing detainees.

Only a single instance of attacking detainees has reached litigation, with the soldier handed a punishment to seven months. An effort to charge others over a severe beating involving assault led to public rallies and the arrest of Israel’s senior defense attorney, with the alleged perpetrators now requesting that allegations against them be dismissed.

Absence of Consequences

“Regardless of this mass number of deaths, over two years not a single person has been detained,” the spokesperson noted. “There are no charges over any death.

“As long as these policies are being applied, all Palestinian detainees in custody is at peril, including the those in good health, even the young ones who have no medical issues.”

Notable Incidents

Several casualties in confinement have been publicly known, such as a senior hospital director who lost his life in detention after a third of a year in custody.

An inmate detained alongside the victim testified that he was brought to the courtyard by prison staff just prior to his passing, clearly wounded and naked from the waist down. His corpse has not been repatriated to Gaza.

Other prisoners who died in Israeli custody are unidentified. Correctional authorities and military provided investigators with the figure of fatalities in custody, and basic other details including the facility where they perished, but without the detainees’ identities.

Recognition Difficulties

In 21 cases, mainly detainees from Gaza, researchers were not able to connect the few details supplied by officials to a casualty recorded by human rights groups, either through accounts from freed prisoners or accounts in the news outlets.

The prisoners’ relatives could be unaware about their family members’ fatalities either, as Israel has made it difficult to locate detainees it is detaining. During 210 days at the start of the conflict, the defense forces declined to give basic information about the condition of thousands of persons confined in Gaza, in effect carrying out a practice of involuntary missing persons, according to the human rights group.

Insufficient Disclosure

From May 2024, government bodies have provided an digital correspondence for enquiries about detainees from Gaza, but this has provided only a partial and limited enhancement. Investigators noted|observed|commented on