🔗 Share this article

Based on figures released by Israel, no fewer than 98 Palestinians have perished during detention starting from October 2023. A human rights group located in Israel has indicated that the true toll is likely significantly greater, due to numerous of unaccounted for individuals originating in Gaza.

Investigation Outcomes

An updated study recorded casualties resulting from physical violence, medical neglect, and starvation. Analysts employed official data requests, autopsy findings, and interviews with lawyers, advocates, relatives, and eyewitnesses.

Official sources released complete statistics solely covering the initial 240 days of the hostilities. Throughout these months, government statistics indicate an unprecedented fatality rate among Palestinian detainees, averaging a single fatality each 96 hours.

Updated Statistics

Israeli defense forces last updated records on custodial deaths for May 2024, and the prison service during September 2024. Researchers identified a further 35 fatalities in confinement following these dates and confirmed them with official sources.

Despite the overall count of deaths charted being much greater than previous assessments, it almost certainly does not reflect the entire scope of Palestinian casualties, per the director of the prisoners and detainees department.

“Even though we are presenting proof for a greater figure of fatalities than previously reported, this is not the entire story,” he said. “We are sure that there are yet people who perished in detention that we are unaware of.”

Civilian Deaths

Classified Israeli data shows that the largest portion of Palestinian detainees from Gaza who perished in prison were non-combatants, based on a related investigation.

In May of this year, a defense forces registry monitoring all militants in Gaza, a registry of more than 47,000 identified persons, documented merely 21 deaths in detention. By that date, 65 Palestinians from Gaza had lost their lives in detention.

Custodial Environment

Physical violence, torture, and further cruelty of Palestinians has become routine across Israel’s prison network during two years of conflict. Top government figures have publicly referenced starvation rations and an subterranean prison holding detainees who are denied sunlight.

Present and past inmates and informants from the defense forces have collectively claimed widespread breaches of global standards.

Systemic Abuse

The systematic abuse occurred alongside a disturbing rise in fatalities recorded across no fewer than 12 prison sites in Israel. Over ten years before the war, there were typically several casualties a year.

“This is not just an individual case occasionally. It is systemic and it is expected to endure,” a representative commented, in part because there is a environment of virtual exemption from consequences for fatalities and maltreatment of detainees.

Just one case of beating detainees has reached litigation, with the soldier handed a punishment to 210 days. An attempt to prosecute other suspects over a severe beating involving sexual violence resulted in political demonstrations and the detention of Israel’s top military lawyer, with the accused individuals now demanding that charges against them are dropped.

Lack of Accountability

“In spite of this large quantity of fatalities, over two years no one has been arrested,” the official said. “There have been no charges over any fatality.

“While these policies continue to be enforced, all Palestinian detainees in confinement faces risk, also the healthy ones, also the youth who have no medical issues.”

Notable Incidents

Certain fatalities in confinement have been publicly known, such as a 50-year-old medical chief who died in prison after four months in confinement.

A detainee incarcerated with the deceased testified that he was brought to the exercise area by guards shortly before his passing, obviously hurt and naked from the lower body. His corpse has not been returned to Gaza.

Other prisoners who perished in confinement by Israeli authorities stay unnamed. The prison service and armed services provided investigators with the number of fatalities in confinement, and limited other details for example the facility where they perished, but not the prisoners’ names.

Identification Challenges

In 21 cases, primarily detainees from Gaza, researchers were not able to match the few details provided by officials to a casualty documented by rights organisations, via accounts from released detainees or reporting in the press.

The prisoners’ relatives may not know about their family members’ fatalities either, as Israel has created obstacles to locate detainees it is confining. During 210 days at the outset of the war, the defense forces declined to provide essential data about the whereabouts of many of people held in Gaza, effectively carrying out a approach of involuntary missing persons, per the rights monitoring body.

Restricted Access

Starting in May 2024, authorities have provided an email address for inquiries about Palestinian individuals from Gaza, but this has led to just a incomplete and restricted enhancement. Investigators noted|observed|commented on