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Based on information provided by Israel, no fewer than 98 detainees from Palestine have died during detention starting from October 2023. An advocacy organization operating from Israel has indicated that the real number is likely significantly greater, as a result of hundreds of disappeared people originating in Gaza.

Study Results

A new investigation documented fatalities attributed to physical violence, lack of healthcare, and starvation. Analysts used transparency petitions, medical examiner documents, and discussions with legal representatives, advocates, next of kin, and eyewitnesses.

Official sources released complete statistics limited to the opening period of the conflict. Over this period, official figures indicate an record death toll among Palestinian prisoners, equating to a single fatality once every four-day period.

Latest Data

The military finalized data on detention fatalities for May 2024, and detention administration by September 2024. Researchers documented an additional 35 casualties in custody after these timeframes and verified them with government bodies.

Although the total number of casualties documented being significantly higher than other recent estimates, it probably does not reflect the full scale of Palestinian loss, according to the director of the detainee affairs unit.

“Even though we are offering documentation for a higher number of casualties than previously reported, this is not the entire story,” he explained. “We are certain that there are yet detainees who lost their lives in confinement that we are unaware of.”

Civilian Casualties

Classified official information indicates that the vast majority of Palestinian prisoners from Gaza who lost their lives in prison were non-combatants, per a parallel examination.

In May of this year, a armed services record tracking all militants in Gaza, a registry of in excess of 47,000 listed people, recorded just 21 fatalities in custody. By that point, 65 Palestinians from Gaza had perished in jail.

Custodial Environment

Physical violence, mistreatment, and other abuse of Palestinians has been normalised across Israel’s detention facilities over 24 months of war. Top government figures have publicly referenced minimal sustenance and an subterranean prison detaining Palestinian individuals who are kept in darkness.

Existing and previous detainees and insiders from the Israeli military have uniformly asserted routine infractions of global standards.

Institutionalized Cruelty

The systematic abuse occurred alongside a troubling surge in fatalities documented across no fewer than 12 civilian and military facilities in Israel. Over ten years before the conflict, there were usually several fatalities a year.

“This is not merely an isolated incident sporadically. It is widespread and it is expected to endure,” a representative said, in part due to the fact there is a environment of virtual exemption from consequences for harming and abusing detainees.

Only a single instance of assaulting inmates has proceeded to court, with the soldier handed a punishment to half a year. An attempt to charge other suspects over a vicious assault involving abuse resulted in political demonstrations and the detention of Israel’s chief legal officer, with the suspects now requesting that indictments against them be withdrawn.

Absence of Consequences

“Regardless of this mass number of casualties, during 24 months not one individual has been arrested,” the official noted. “There are no prosecutions over any fatality.

“During the time these practices are being applied, all Palestinian detainees in detention faces risk, including the healthy ones, also the youth who have no underlying conditions.”

Notable Incidents

Several casualties in custody have been publicly known, for instance a 50-year-old hospital director who died in prison after four months in confinement.

A detainee held with the deceased reported that he was taken to the yard by guards immediately preceding his passing, visibly injured and naked from the waist down. His corpse has not been returned to Gaza.

Other prisoners who lost their lives in confinement by Israeli authorities remain anonymous. The prison service and defense forces supplied investigators with the number of deaths in detention, and minimal further data for example the facility where they died, but excluding the prisoners’ names.

Documentation Problems

In 21 cases, mainly individuals from Gaza, investigators were unable to match the limited information provided by authorities to a fatality recorded by rights organisations, via statements from former inmates or accounts in the news outlets.

The inmates’ next of kin might not have learned about their loved ones’ deaths either, as Israel has impeded efforts to track Palestinian individuals it is confining. For seven months at the start of the war, the Israeli military declined to provide fundamental details about the whereabouts of thousands of individuals detained in Gaza, in effect enacting a approach of forced disappearance, per the human rights group.

Limited Transparency

Beginning last May, officials have provided an email address for enquiries about Palestinian individuals from Gaza, but this has resulted in merely a modest and inadequate improvement. Researchers noted|observed|commented on