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Based on figures provided by Israel, no fewer than 98 Palestinian individuals have died while detained since October 2023. A human rights group operating from Israel has indicated that the actual figure is likely significantly greater, due to many of unaccounted for people originating in Gaza.

Report Findings

An updated study tracked casualties resulting from assault, failure to provide medical care, and starvation. Analysts utilized official data requests, medical examiner documents, and interviews with attorneys, activists, family members, and eyewitnesses.

Israeli authorities released complete information limited to the first eight months of the war. Throughout these months, official figures indicate an historically high casualty rate among detained Palestinians, equating to a single fatality once every four-day period.

Latest Data

Israeli defense forces last updated information on detention fatalities for May 2024, and correctional authorities by September 2024. Analysts documented a further 35 deaths in detention after these dates and confirmed them with government bodies.

Although the aggregate figure of deaths recorded being much greater than earlier projections, it probably fails to capture the full scale of Palestinian loss, according to the head of the detainee affairs unit.

“Although we are offering documentation for a higher number of deaths than earlier indicated, this is not the entire story,” he explained. “We are certain that there are even now individuals who perished in detention that we have not identified.”

Civilian Deaths

Confidential government records suggests that the largest portion of Palestinian prisoners from Gaza who perished in detention were civilians, per a parallel examination.

By May of the current year, a armed services record tracking all combatants in Gaza, a roster of more than 47,000 identified persons, recorded just 21 deaths in detention. At that time, 65 Palestinians from Gaza had lost their lives in prison.

Custodial Environment

Physical violence, torture, and additional maltreatment of Palestinians is now standard practice across Israel’s prison network during two years of hostilities. Top government figures have publicly acknowledged starvation rations and an subterranean prison confining Palestinians who are kept in darkness.

Current and former prisoners and insiders from the defense forces have uniformly asserted widespread breaches of international law.

Organized Maltreatment

The organized mistreatment came with a troubling surge in deaths registered across a minimum of 12 detention centers in Israel. Over ten years prior to the war, there were usually a couple casualties a year.

“This isn’t only a single occurrence here and there. It is systemic and it is expected to endure,” an official commented, partly because there is a culture of virtual exemption from consequences for fatalities and maltreatment of Palestinian individuals.

Only a single instance of assaulting detainees has come to trial, with the military personnel given a penalty to 210 days. An effort to try other suspects over a vicious assault featuring abuse resulted in right-wing protests and the apprehension of Israel’s chief legal officer, with the accused individuals now requesting that indictments against them are dropped.

Absence of Consequences

“Regardless of this significant total of fatalities, throughout the conflict not a single person has been arrested,” the representative stated. “There exist no charges over any killing.

“As long as these practices are being applied, each Palestinian individual in detention is at peril, including the healthy ones, including the youth who have no underlying conditions.”

High-Profile Cases

Certain fatalities in detention have been publicly known, such as a senior medical chief who died in prison after four months in confinement.

An inmate detained alongside the victim reported that he was led to the exercise area by prison staff just prior to his passing, visibly injured and naked from the waist down. His remains remains unreleased to Gaza.

Further inmates who lost their lives in detention in Israel stay unnamed. The prison service and armed services provided investigators with the figure of deaths in confinement, and basic other details such as the location where they lost their lives, but without the inmates’ personal details.

Recognition Difficulties

In 21 cases, mostly individuals from Gaza, researchers were not able to match the limited information given by government bodies to a casualty registered by human rights groups, by means of accounts from former inmates or coverage in the press.

The inmates’ next of kin may not know about their relatives’ casualties as well, as Israel has created obstacles to track Palestinian individuals it is confining. For seven months at the start of the conflict, the defense forces refused to supply basic information about the status of many of persons held in Gaza, practically carrying out a practice of involuntary missing persons, per the human rights group.

Restricted Access

From May 2024, government bodies have provided an electronic contact for requests about Palestinians from Gaza, but this has led to just a modest and inadequate betterment. Investigators noted|observed|commented on