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Based on information from Israel, no fewer than 98 Palestinian individuals have perished during detention since October 2023. An advocacy organization based in Israel has stated that the actual figure is likely considerably greater, because of hundreds of missing detainees in Gaza.

Report Findings

A new investigation recorded fatalities attributed to physical violence, failure to provide medical care, and malnutrition. Investigators employed transparency petitions, medical examiner documents, and interviews with legal representatives, activists, next of kin, and eyewitnesses.

Government bodies disclosed complete information limited to the first eight months of the conflict. Throughout these months, official figures reveal an historically high death toll among Palestinian detainees, amounting to a life lost each 96 hours.

Recent Figures

Official armed forces most recently revised records on custodial deaths for May 2024, and the prison service during September 2024. Investigators documented another 35 fatalities in confinement following these timeframes and confirmed them with Israeli authorities.

Even with the aggregate figure of fatalities recorded being much greater than previous assessments, it likely does not reflect the full scale of losses among Palestinians, according to the head of the prisoner monitoring division.

“While we are providing evidence for a larger total of casualties than earlier indicated, this is not the entire story,” he said. “We are confident that there are yet individuals who died in detention that we don’t know about.”

Non-Combatant Fatalities

Classified government records shows that the majority of Palestinian detainees from Gaza who perished in detention were civilians, based on a related inquiry.

During May of 2024, a defense forces registry tracking all combatants in Gaza, a list of more than 47,000 listed people, recorded only 21 fatalities in detention. By that date, 65 Gazans from Gaza had perished in detention.

Detention Conditions

Assault, torture, and additional maltreatment of Palestinians is now standard practice across Israel’s prison network over the duration of war. Top government figures have openly admitted inadequate food and an subterranean prison detaining Palestinian individuals who are kept in darkness.

Current and former detainees and insiders from the armed services have uniformly asserted routine infractions of global standards.

Systemic Abuse

The organized mistreatment came with a disturbing rise in fatalities registered across a minimum of 12 detention centers in Israel. In the decade preceding the war, there were usually several casualties a year.

“This does not represent only a single occurrence occasionally. It is systemic and it is expected to endure,” an official stated, partially because there is a climate of virtual exemption from consequences for fatalities and maltreatment of detainees.

Only a single instance of assaulting detainees has reached litigation, with the military personnel given a penalty to seven months. An effort to charge others over a vicious assault featuring abuse caused right-wing protests and the arrest of Israel’s senior defense attorney, with the suspects now insisting that indictments against them are dropped.

Lack of Accountability

“Despite this mass number of deaths, over two years not one individual has been arrested,” the official said. “There have been no prosecutions over any fatality.

“As long as these policies continue to be enforced, every Palestinian in detention is in danger, also the those in good health, also the youth who have no medical issues.”

Notable Incidents

Several casualties in confinement have been high profile, including a 50-year-old hospital director who died in confinement after 120 days in detention.

An inmate held with the individual testified that he was brought to the courtyard by guards just prior to his passing, visibly injured and naked from the lower body. His corpse has not been repatriated to Gaza.

Additional detainees who lost their lives in confinement by Israeli authorities stay unnamed. The prison service and armed services supplied researchers with the figure of fatalities in custody, and limited further data such as the location where they lost their lives, but without the prisoners’ names.

Recognition Difficulties

Regarding 21 occurrences, primarily people from Gaza, researchers could not to connect the limited information given by authorities to a fatality recorded by rights organisations, via testimony from released detainees or coverage in the press.

The detainees’ families may not know about their family members’ fatalities either, as Israel has made it difficult to locate Palestinian individuals it is confining. During 210 days at the beginning of the hostilities, the Israeli military refused to provide essential data about the whereabouts of many of people detained in Gaza, effectively enacting a practice of involuntary missing persons, according to the rights monitoring body.

Limited Transparency

Starting in May 2024, authorities have provided an email address for requests about Palestinians from Gaza, but this has provided only a modest and inadequate improvement. Researchers noted|observed|commented on