🔗 Share this article

Based on data released by Israel, no fewer than 98 detainees from Palestine have lost their lives while detained beginning in October 2023. A human rights group located in Israel has indicated that the actual number is almost certainly substantially larger, because of hundreds of unaccounted for people originating in Gaza.

Investigation Outcomes

An updated study documented casualties resulting from physical violence, lack of healthcare, and malnutrition. Investigators utilized official data requests, medical examiner documents, and interviews with lawyers, advocates, next of kin, and witnesses.

Official sources provided comprehensive data limited to the initial 240 days of the conflict. Throughout these months, official figures reveal an record fatality rate among Palestinian prisoners, averaging a life lost once every four-day period.

Latest Data

Israeli defense forces most recently revised information on detention fatalities for May 2024, and detention administration during September 2024. Investigators documented another 35 deaths in confinement subsequent to these periods and verified them with official sources.

Despite the aggregate figure of fatalities recorded being significantly higher than earlier projections, it likely fails to capture the full scale of Palestinian casualties, per the director of the prisoners and detainees department.

“Although we are providing evidence for a greater figure of casualties than earlier indicated, this is an incomplete account,” he said. “We are confident that there are still detainees who lost their lives in detention that we are unaware of.”

Civilian Casualties

Classified Israeli data indicates that the vast majority of Palestinian detainees from Gaza who died in prison were ordinary citizens, per a parallel inquiry.

In May of the current year, a military intelligence database tracking all fighters in Gaza, a list of more than 47,000 named individuals, listed just 21 deaths in custody. By that point, 65 Gazans from Gaza had lost their lives in jail.

Detention Conditions

Physical violence, torture, and additional maltreatment of Palestinian individuals has been normalised across Israel’s detention facilities throughout the duration of conflict. High-ranking authorities have publicly referenced inadequate food and an below-ground detention center holding Palestinian individuals who are kept in darkness.

Existing and previous detainees and informants from the Israeli military have uniformly asserted systemic violations of global standards.

Organized Maltreatment

The systematic abuse was accompanied by a alarming increase in casualties documented across at least 12 prison sites in Israel. Over ten years preceding the conflict, there were on average a couple deaths a year.

“This is not merely an isolated incident sporadically. It is widespread and it will continue,” a spokesperson said, partially due to the fact there is a culture of near total impunity for killing and mistreating Palestinian individuals.

Only a single instance of assaulting inmates has come to trial, with the soldier given a penalty to 210 days. An effort to prosecute additional individuals over a severe beating featuring sexual violence led to public rallies and the detention of Israel’s senior defense attorney, with the suspects now insisting that indictments against them are dropped.

Absence of Consequences

“Despite this large quantity of fatalities, during 24 months not a single person has faced arrest,” the official said. “There exist no prosecutions over any death.

“During the time these measures remain in effect, all Palestinian detainees in detention faces risk, also the physically well individuals, even the young ones who have no medical issues.”

Prominent Examples

Several casualties in detention have been publicly known, for instance a 50-year-old healthcare leader who died in prison after four months in confinement.

A prisoner incarcerated with the victim reported that he was brought to the courtyard by prison staff shortly before his death, obviously hurt and naked from the waist down. His corpse has not been repatriated to Gaza.

Other prisoners who died in confinement by Israeli authorities are unidentified. Correctional authorities and military gave investigators with the figure of fatalities in confinement, and basic other details including the location where they lost their lives, but excluding the prisoners’ names.

Recognition Difficulties

For 21 instances, primarily individuals from Gaza, investigators could not to correlate the limited information supplied by government bodies to a fatality documented by rights organisations, either through testimony from freed prisoners or coverage in the press.

The detainees’ families may not know about their loved ones’ deaths also, as Israel has made it difficult to track detainees it is confining. For seven months at the start of the war, the armed services would not provide to provide basic information about the status of numerous of persons held in Gaza, practically implementing a policy of involuntary missing persons, according to the advocacy organization.

Restricted Access

Beginning last May, authorities have established an email address for inquiries about Palestinian individuals from Gaza, but this has provided only a modest and inadequate improvement. Researchers noted|observed|commented on