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Per information provided by Israel, no fewer than 98 Palestinians have died while detained beginning in October 2023. A rights monitoring body operating from Israel has indicated that the true number is almost certainly significantly larger, because of numerous of unaccounted for people in Gaza.

Report Findings

A new investigation recorded fatalities caused by brutality, medical neglect, and malnutrition. Investigators employed freedom of information requests, medical examiner documents, and interviews with lawyers, human rights defenders, family members, and witnesses.

Government bodies disclosed complete information only for the initial 240 days of the war. During this time, government statistics show an unprecedented casualty rate among Palestinian detainees, averaging a life lost once every four-day period.

Latest Data

Official armed forces most recently revised information on detention fatalities for May 2024, and correctional authorities in September 2024. Analysts identified a further 35 deaths in detention following these dates and confirmed them with Israeli authorities.

Despite the overall count of fatalities documented being much greater than previous assessments, it almost certainly omits the complete extent of Palestinian loss, according to the head of the prisoner monitoring division.

“Although we are presenting proof for a larger total of deaths than earlier indicated, this is an incomplete account,” he said. “We are certain that there are still individuals who lost their lives in detention that we have not identified.”

Civilian Deaths

Confidential government records shows that the vast majority of incarcerated Palestinians from Gaza who died in detention were civilians, based on a related examination.

In May of the current year, a defense forces registry tracking all fighters in Gaza, a list of more than 47,000 listed people, recorded merely 21 casualties in custody. By that date, 65 Gazans from Gaza had died in prison.

Prison Situation

Assault, abuse, and additional maltreatment of detainees from Palestine has been normalised across Israel’s detention facilities during the duration of conflict. Senior officials have publicly acknowledged starvation rations and an underground jail confining Palestinian individuals who never see daylight.

Current and former prisoners and informants from the armed services have uniformly asserted routine infractions of international law.

Organized Maltreatment

The organized mistreatment occurred alongside a troubling surge in casualties registered across at least 12 prison sites in Israel. In the decade prior to the war, there were usually several deaths a year.

“This does not represent just an individual case sporadically. It is institutional and it will continue,” a spokesperson said, partially because there is a culture of almost complete immunity for fatalities and maltreatment of detainees.

Merely one incident of assaulting inmates has reached litigation, with the service member handed a punishment to half a year. An attempt to charge others over a severe beating featuring abuse resulted in political demonstrations and the arrest of Israel’s top military lawyer, with the alleged perpetrators now demanding that allegations against them be dismissed.

No Legal Action

“Regardless of this large quantity of casualties, over two years no one has been arrested,” the spokesperson said. “There have been no charges over any killing.

“While these measures remain in effect, every Palestinian in confinement faces risk, including the physically well individuals, also the young ones who have no medical issues.”

Notable Incidents

Certain fatalities in detention have been widely reported, such as a 50-year-old medical chief who lost his life in prison after a third of a year in custody.

An inmate incarcerated with the individual reported that he was taken to the exercise area by prison staff immediately preceding his death, visibly injured and exposed from the waist down. His remains has not been repatriated to Gaza.

Other prisoners who lost their lives in Israeli custody remain anonymous. Detention administrators and military supplied investigators with the number of deaths in custody, and basic additional information for example the site where they lost their lives, but not the inmates’ personal details.

Identification Challenges

For 21 instances, mostly individuals from Gaza, researchers could not to connect the few details given by authorities to a death recorded by human rights groups, by means of accounts from released detainees or accounts in the media.

The inmates’ next of kin could be unaware about their relatives’ casualties either, as Israel has made it difficult to track detainees it is confining. Over half a year at the outset of the hostilities, the defense forces declined to give basic information about the status of many of persons detained in Gaza, practically implementing a policy of involuntary missing persons, per the advocacy organization.

Restricted Access

Starting in May 2024, government bodies have established an email address for inquiries about Palestinians from Gaza, but this has resulted in merely a incomplete and restricted enhancement. Investigators noted|observed|commented on