🔗 Share this article

Based on figures from Israel, no fewer than 98 detainees from Palestine have died during detention since October 2023. A rights monitoring body located in Israel has reported that the real toll is probably significantly greater, as a result of numerous of missing individuals originating in Gaza.

Study Results

A recent report documented casualties attributed to brutality, failure to provide medical care, and inadequate nutrition. Investigators used transparency petitions, medical examiner documents, and testimonies with attorneys, human rights defenders, next of kin, and observers.

Official sources released comprehensive data limited to the first eight months of the war. Throughout these months, government statistics indicate an record casualty rate among Palestinian prisoners, averaging a life lost once every four-day period.

Updated Statistics

The military finalized information on detention fatalities for May 2024, and detention administration during September 2024. Analysts documented a further 35 casualties in confinement subsequent to these periods and verified them with Israeli authorities.

Even with the overall count of casualties charted being much greater than earlier projections, it almost certainly omits the full scale of Palestinian casualties, as stated by the leader of the prisoner monitoring division.

“Although we are providing evidence for a higher number of casualties than earlier indicated, this is an incomplete account,” he stated. “We are sure that there are yet individuals who lost their lives in confinement that we have not identified.”

Civilian Casualties

Restricted government records shows that the vast majority of incarcerated Palestinians from Gaza who lost their lives in prison were ordinary citizens, based on a parallel investigation.

By May of the current year, a military intelligence database tracking all militants in Gaza, a list of over 47,000 named individuals, recorded merely 21 fatalities in detention. By that date, 65 Palestinians from Gaza had perished in prison.

Custodial Environment

Brutality, mistreatment, and other abuse of Palestinians has become routine across Israel’s detention facilities during 24 months of hostilities. Senior officials have publicly referenced inadequate food and an subterranean prison holding detainees who are kept in darkness.

Current and former prisoners and informants from the Israeli military have collectively claimed widespread breaches of global standards.

Systemic Abuse

The organized mistreatment was accompanied by a troubling surge in fatalities recorded across at least 12 prison sites in Israel. During the previous decade preceding the hostilities, there were on average several fatalities a year.

“This isn’t merely an isolated incident here and there. It is systemic and it is likely to persist,” a representative commented, partially due to the fact there is a culture of virtual exemption from consequences for fatalities and maltreatment of detainees.

Merely one incident of assaulting inmates has come to trial, with the soldier sentenced to 210 days. An attempt to charge additional individuals over a severe beating including assault caused political demonstrations and the apprehension of Israel’s chief legal officer, with the suspects now insisting that charges against them be dismissed.

Absence of Consequences

“Regardless of this large quantity of fatalities, during 24 months no one has been arrested,” the official said. “There are no charges over any fatality.

“As long as these measures remain in effect, every Palestinian in confinement is at peril, including the those in good health, also the juveniles who have no health problems.”

High-Profile Cases

Certain fatalities in confinement have been high profile, such as a 50-year-old hospital director who died in prison after 120 days in custody.

A detainee held with the deceased stated that he was brought to the courtyard by prison staff shortly before his demise, clearly wounded and naked from the lower body. His corpse remains unreleased to Gaza.

Other prisoners who lost their lives in detention in Israel remain anonymous. Correctional authorities and armed services supplied investigators with the total of fatalities in detention, and minimal additional information such as the location where they died, but excluding the prisoners’ names.

Identification Challenges

In 21 cases, mainly individuals from Gaza, researchers were unable to match the few details provided by officials to a death registered by advocacy bodies, by means of testimony from former inmates or reporting in the news outlets.

The detainees’ families could be unaware about their relatives’ casualties as well, as Israel has created obstacles to locate Palestinians it is detaining. During 210 days at the start of the hostilities, the defense forces would not provide to give basic information about the condition of many of individuals confined in Gaza, practically carrying out a policy of forced disappearance, according to the advocacy organization.

Restricted Access

Beginning last May, officials have established an digital correspondence for enquiries about Palestinians from Gaza, but this has led to just a incomplete and restricted improvement. Researchers noted|observed|commented on