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Based on data provided by Israel, no fewer than 98 detainees from Palestine have lost their lives while detained starting from October 2023. A human rights group operating from Israel has reported that the actual toll is likely significantly higher, due to many of missing people in Gaza.

Study Results

A new investigation tracked casualties resulting from brutality, failure to provide medical care, and inadequate nutrition. Investigators utilized official data requests, autopsy findings, and discussions with legal representatives, human rights defenders, next of kin, and eyewitnesses.

Government bodies provided comprehensive data limited to the initial 240 days of the war. During this time, reported numbers reveal an unprecedented fatality rate among Palestinian detainees, averaging a single fatality each 96 hours.

Updated Statistics

The military most recently revised information on custodial deaths for May 2024, and correctional authorities in September 2024. Analysts discovered a further 35 fatalities in confinement following these periods and confirmed them with Israeli authorities.

Despite the overall count of deaths charted being substantially larger than previous assessments, it likely does not reflect the full scale of losses among Palestinians, according to the director of the prisoner monitoring division.

“While we are presenting proof for a larger total of fatalities than previously reported, this is not a full picture,” he stated. “We are confident that there are still people who lost their lives in custody that we don’t know about.”

Non-Combatant Fatalities

Confidential government records indicates that the largest portion of incarcerated Palestinians from Gaza who lost their lives in jail were civilians, according to a simultaneous investigation.

During May of this year, a defense forces registry following all fighters in Gaza, a list of over 47,000 identified persons, listed only 21 deaths in confinement. By that date, 65 individuals from Palestine from Gaza had lost their lives in detention.

Detention Conditions

Brutality, torture, and further cruelty of Palestinian individuals has been normalised across Israel’s jail system over two years of war. Top government figures have publicly referenced minimal sustenance and an below-ground detention center holding Palestinians who never see daylight.

Current and former prisoners and whistleblowers from the defense forces have all alleged systemic violations of international law.

Systemic Abuse

The organized mistreatment came with a disturbing rise in fatalities recorded across at least 12 prison sites in Israel. In the decade prior to the war, there were on average a couple deaths a year.

“This does not represent just an individual case occasionally. It is widespread and it is expected to endure,” a spokesperson said, partly since there is a culture of almost complete immunity for harming and abusing detainees.

Merely one incident of assaulting inmates has proceeded to court, with the service member sentenced to seven months. An attempt to prosecute other suspects over a brutal attack including assault led to public rallies and the apprehension of Israel’s senior defense attorney, with the suspects now demanding that indictments against them be withdrawn.

Absence of Consequences

“Despite this significant total of casualties, during 24 months no one has faced arrest,” the representative noted. “There are no indictments over any death.

“As long as these measures remain in effect, all Palestinian detainees in confinement is in danger, including the physically well individuals, including the juveniles who have no health problems.”

Notable Incidents

Several casualties in confinement have been publicly known, including a middle-aged hospital director who lost his life in detention after four months in confinement.

A prisoner held with the deceased stated that he was taken to the exercise area by correctional officers just prior to his death, clearly wounded and naked from the waist down. His remains has not been returned to Gaza.

Additional detainees who lost their lives in detention in Israel are unidentified. The prison service and defense forces provided analysts with the total of casualties in confinement, and limited other details for example the location where they lost their lives, but without the prisoners’ names.

Identification Challenges

In 21 cases, primarily detainees from Gaza, investigators could not to connect the minimal data supplied by officials to a death recorded by advocacy bodies, either through testimony from former inmates or coverage in the news outlets.

The prisoners’ relatives may not know about their loved ones’ deaths either, as Israel has impeded efforts to locate Palestinians it is detaining. For seven months at the outset of the hostilities, the Israeli military refused to give essential data about the status of many of individuals held in Gaza, effectively implementing a practice of forced disappearance, per the human rights group.

Insufficient Disclosure

From May 2024, authorities have provided an email address for requests about detainees from Gaza, but this has provided only a incomplete and restricted enhancement. Investigators noted|observed|commented on