At Least 98 Palestinians Have Died in Israeli Custody Since October 2023, Official Figures Shows
According to data from Israel, a minimum of 98 Palestinians have died while in custody beginning in October 2023. A human rights group based in Israel has indicated that the true figure is probably considerably higher, due to many of missing detainees in Gaza.
Report Findings
A recent report recorded deaths caused by brutality, lack of healthcare, and starvation. Investigators employed transparency petitions, autopsy findings, and interviews with legal representatives, human rights defenders, relatives, and witnesses.
Government bodies disclosed complete statistics only for the initial 240 days of the war. During this time, reported numbers indicate an record casualty rate among Palestinian prisoners, amounting to a life lost once every four-day period.
Latest Data
Official armed forces finalized data on deaths in detention for May 2024, and correctional authorities in September 2024. Analysts identified a further 35 casualties in custody following these periods and confirmed them with official sources.
Although the total number of fatalities documented being substantially larger than earlier projections, it almost certainly does not reflect the complete extent of losses among Palestinians, per the director of the prisoner monitoring division.
“Even though we are providing evidence for a greater figure of fatalities than previously reported, this is not the entire story,” he explained. “We are sure that there are still individuals who lost their lives in detention that we don’t know about.”
Non-Combatant Fatalities
Restricted Israeli data suggests that the vast majority of Palestinian prisoners from Gaza who lost their lives in jail were non-combatants, based on a related investigation.
In May of 2024, a defense forces registry monitoring all combatants in Gaza, a roster of over 47,000 named individuals, listed only 21 casualties in confinement. By that date, 65 Palestinians from Gaza had perished in prison.
Detention Conditions
Physical violence, torture, and further cruelty of Palestinian individuals is now standard practice across Israel’s detention facilities over two years of war. Senior officials have publicly referenced minimal sustenance and an underground jail confining Palestinians who are kept in darkness.
Present and past inmates and informants from the armed services have uniformly asserted routine infractions of global standards.
Systemic Abuse
The organized mistreatment occurred alongside a disturbing rise in casualties documented across a minimum of 12 detention centers in Israel. Over ten years preceding the war, there were on average a couple fatalities a year.
“This is not just an individual case here and there. It is widespread and it is expected to endure,” a spokesperson said, partially because there is a culture of near total impunity for fatalities and maltreatment of Palestinian individuals.
Just one case of assaulting prisoners has proceeded to court, with the military personnel sentenced to 210 days. An attempt to try additional individuals over a brutal attack including sexual violence resulted in public rallies and the detention of Israel’s senior defense attorney, with the suspects now requesting that allegations against them be dismissed.
Absence of Consequences
“Despite this large quantity of casualties, throughout the conflict not a single person has faced arrest,” the official noted. “There have been no prosecutions over any death.
“As long as these policies remain in effect, each Palestinian individual in custody is at peril, including the healthy ones, also the young ones who have no medical issues.”
High-Profile Cases
Some deaths in confinement have been widely reported, for instance a senior healthcare leader who lost his life in detention after 120 days in detention.
A prisoner detained alongside the victim reported that he was led to the yard by prison staff immediately preceding his demise, obviously hurt and unclothed from the lower body. His body has not been repatriated to Gaza.
Other prisoners who lost their lives in detention in Israel stay unnamed. The prison service and defense forces supplied analysts with the number of fatalities in custody, and minimal further data including the site where they lost their lives, but excluding the prisoners’ names.
Identification Challenges
Regarding 21 occurrences, mostly people from Gaza, researchers were not able to match the few details provided by government bodies to a fatality registered by rights organisations, via accounts from released detainees or reporting in the press.
The prisoners’ relatives could be unaware about their relatives’ casualties either, as Israel has made it difficult to locate Palestinian individuals it is holding. For seven months at the outset of the war, the defense forces declined to supply basic information about the status of numerous of individuals detained in Gaza, effectively carrying out a approach of involuntary missing persons, according to the advocacy organization.
Insufficient Disclosure
Beginning last May, officials have provided an electronic contact for requests about Palestinians from Gaza, but this has resulted in merely a incomplete and restricted enhancement. Investigators noted|observed|commented on
