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Based on data from Israel, at least 98 Palestinians have perished while in custody starting from October 2023. A rights monitoring body based in Israel has indicated that the true number is likely substantially greater, as a result of hundreds of disappeared individuals originating in Gaza.

Report Findings

A new investigation tracked deaths caused by physical violence, lack of healthcare, and starvation. Analysts employed freedom of information requests, autopsy findings, and discussions with lawyers, advocates, family members, and observers.

Government bodies provided comprehensive data limited to the opening period of the hostilities. Throughout these months, reported numbers indicate an unprecedented death toll among detained Palestinians, equating to a life lost every four days.

Updated Statistics

The military most recently revised information on custodial deaths for May 2024, and the prison service during September 2024. Investigators identified another 35 casualties in custody following these periods and verified them with Israeli authorities.

Although the aggregate figure of casualties recorded being significantly higher than earlier projections, it almost certainly does not reflect the full scale of losses among Palestinians, as stated by the head of the prisoners and detainees department.

“Although we are presenting proof for a greater figure of casualties than once estimated, this is an incomplete account,” he stated. “We are confident that there are still people who perished in custody that we don’t know about.”

Civilian Casualties

Confidential official information suggests that the vast majority of incarcerated Palestinians from Gaza who perished in detention were civilians, based on a related examination.

By May of this year, a armed services record tracking all combatants in Gaza, a roster of over 47,000 named individuals, documented just 21 fatalities in detention. By that point, 65 Palestinians from Gaza had lost their lives in jail.

Custodial Environment

Assault, mistreatment, and further cruelty of Palestinian individuals has been normalised across Israel’s jail system throughout the duration of conflict. High-ranking authorities have publicly acknowledged starvation rations and an underground jail detaining Palestinians who are kept in darkness.

Present and past prisoners and insiders from the armed services have all alleged widespread breaches of international law.

Institutionalized Cruelty

The institutionalised cruelty occurred alongside a alarming increase in deaths recorded across a minimum of 12 detention centers in Israel. During the previous decade preceding the hostilities, there were usually a couple fatalities a year.

“This is not just an individual case here and there. It is systemic and it is expected to endure,” a representative commented, in part because there is a climate of near total impunity for killing and mistreating detainees.

Only a single instance of attacking inmates has come to trial, with the military personnel handed a punishment to 210 days. An attempt to charge additional individuals over a vicious assault involving sexual violence led to public rallies and the detention of Israel’s chief legal officer, with the suspects now demanding that allegations against them be withdrawn.

Lack of Accountability

“Regardless of this large quantity of deaths, during 24 months not a single person has been arrested,” the representative said. “There have been no prosecutions over any killing.

“While these practices remain in effect, all Palestinian detainees in detention faces risk, even the physically well individuals, also the young ones who have no underlying conditions.”

Notable Incidents

Some deaths in confinement have been widely reported, for instance a middle-aged hospital director who lost his life in confinement after a third of a year in confinement.

A detainee incarcerated with the individual testified that he was brought to the yard by correctional officers shortly before his death, visibly injured and naked from the waist down. His corpse remains unreleased to Gaza.

Further inmates who perished in detention in Israel stay unnamed. Detention administrators and military provided analysts with the figure of deaths in custody, and basic other details such as the facility where they lost their lives, but without the detainees’ identities.

Documentation Problems

Regarding 21 occurrences, mainly detainees from Gaza, researchers were unable to connect the limited information provided by government bodies to a casualty recorded by rights organisations, via accounts from former inmates or reporting in the media.

The inmates’ next of kin may not know about their family members’ fatalities either, as Israel has impeded efforts to locate Palestinian individuals it is holding. During 210 days at the outset of the conflict, the armed services refused to provide essential data about the whereabouts of thousands of individuals confined in Gaza, effectively carrying out a practice of forced disappearance, as stated by the rights monitoring body.

Restricted Access

From May 2024, officials have provided an email address for requests about Palestinian individuals from Gaza, but this has provided only a incomplete and restricted improvement. Analysts noted|observed|commented on