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Per figures provided by Israel, a minimum of 98 Palestinian individuals have perished during detention since October 2023. A rights monitoring body located in Israel has indicated that the real figure is probably significantly larger, because of many of unaccounted for individuals from Gaza.

Investigation Outcomes

An updated study documented fatalities caused by physical violence, medical neglect, and malnutrition. Investigators employed official data requests, autopsy findings, and discussions with legal representatives, advocates, next of kin, and eyewitnesses.

Official sources released comprehensive statistics limited to the opening period of the war. Throughout these months, government statistics indicate an record casualty rate among Palestinian prisoners, averaging one death each 96 hours.

Latest Data

Official armed forces last updated information on custodial deaths for May 2024, and correctional authorities during September 2024. Investigators discovered a further 35 fatalities in detention subsequent to these dates and confirmed them with Israeli authorities.

Even with the total number of casualties charted being much greater than earlier projections, it probably omits the full scale of Palestinian casualties, per the director of the prisoners and detainees department.

“Although we are offering documentation for a greater figure of deaths than once estimated, this is not the entire story,” he said. “We are confident that there are still individuals who lost their lives in confinement that we are unaware of.”

Non-Combatant Fatalities

Confidential Israeli data shows that the largest portion of Palestinian prisoners from Gaza who perished in jail were non-combatants, according to a related inquiry.

During May of 2024, a defense forces registry monitoring all combatants in Gaza, a list of over 47,000 identified persons, documented only 21 deaths in custody. By that point, 65 Gazans from Gaza had perished in jail.

Detention Conditions

Brutality, abuse, and other abuse of Palestinians is now standard practice across Israel’s detention facilities during 24 months of hostilities. Top government figures have publicly acknowledged inadequate food and an below-ground detention center confining detainees who are kept in darkness.

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

Institutionalized Cruelty

The organized mistreatment was accompanied by a alarming increase in fatalities recorded across no fewer than 12 detention centers in Israel. In the decade prior to the war, there were typically two or three casualties a year.

“This isn’t just an individual case sporadically. It is institutional and it is likely to persist,” an official stated, partly since there is a climate of virtual exemption from consequences for harming and abusing Palestinians.

Only a single instance of beating detainees has come to trial, with the soldier handed a punishment to 210 days. An attempt to charge other suspects over a vicious assault involving assault caused public rallies and the apprehension of Israel’s top military lawyer, with the suspects now requesting that charges against them are dropped.

No Legal Action

“In spite of this large quantity of casualties, over two years not one individual has been detained,” the official noted. “There are no charges over any death.

“As long as these policies are being applied, each Palestinian individual in detention is in danger, even the those in good health, also the youth who have no underlying conditions.”

Prominent Examples

Some deaths in custody have been high profile, including a 50-year-old medical chief who perished in confinement after 120 days in custody.

A prisoner incarcerated with the deceased stated that he was brought to the yard by guards shortly before his demise, clearly wounded and naked from the lower body. His body remains unreleased to Gaza.

Additional detainees who perished in Israeli custody stay unnamed. Correctional authorities and defense forces provided analysts with the figure of casualties in detention, and limited further data including the facility where they died, but excluding the inmates’ personal details.

Documentation Problems

In 21 cases, mostly individuals from Gaza, researchers were not able to correlate the minimal data given by government bodies to a death documented by rights organisations, either through accounts from former inmates or coverage in the press.

The prisoners’ relatives could be unaware about their family members’ fatalities also, as Israel has impeded efforts to track Palestinians it is detaining. Over half a year at the beginning of the war, the armed services declined to provide fundamental details about the status of thousands of people detained in Gaza, in effect carrying out a practice of unacknowledged detention, according to the rights monitoring body.

Limited Transparency

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