No Fewer Than 98 Palestinians Have Died in Custody Since October 2023, Official Figures Indicates
Based on figures from Israel, at least 98 Palestinians have lost their lives while in custody starting from October 2023. A rights monitoring body located in Israel has stated that the true toll is probably significantly greater, as a result of many of unaccounted for detainees from Gaza.
Report Findings
A new investigation recorded deaths resulting from physical violence, medical neglect, and malnutrition. Analysts employed official data requests, autopsy findings, and discussions with legal representatives, human rights defenders, next of kin, and eyewitnesses.
Israeli authorities provided comprehensive information limited to the initial 240 days of the war. During this time, reported numbers show an historically high death toll among Palestinian prisoners, amounting to one death every four days.
Latest Data
Israeli defense forces most recently revised records on deaths in detention for May 2024, and the prison service during September 2024. Researchers discovered another 35 deaths in confinement after these dates and validated them with official sources.
Despite the overall count of deaths charted being substantially larger than previous assessments, it probably does not reflect the entire scope of Palestinian loss, as stated by the director of the prisoners and detainees department.
“Even though we are offering documentation for a larger total of deaths than once estimated, this is an incomplete account,” he explained. “We are confident that there are still people who lost their lives in custody that we have not identified.”
Non-Combatant Fatalities
Confidential government records suggests that the majority of Palestinian prisoners from Gaza who lost their lives in jail were civilians, per a parallel examination.
By May of 2024, a military intelligence database monitoring all fighters in Gaza, a registry of over 47,000 named individuals, listed merely 21 casualties in detention. By that point, 65 Palestinians from Gaza had lost their lives in prison.
Prison Situation
Assault, abuse, and further cruelty of Palestinians has been normalised across Israel’s prison network throughout the duration of hostilities. Top government figures have publicly referenced inadequate food and an below-ground detention center holding Palestinian individuals who are kept in darkness.
Current and former prisoners and whistleblowers from the Israeli military have all alleged systemic violations of international law.
Systemic Abuse
The organized mistreatment occurred alongside a disturbing rise in fatalities documented across at least 12 detention centers in Israel. In the decade before the war, there were usually a couple casualties a year.
“This does not represent just an individual case sporadically. It is institutional and it is expected to endure,” an official stated, partly due to the fact there is a culture of almost complete immunity for fatalities and maltreatment of Palestinian individuals.
Merely one incident of attacking inmates has reached litigation, with the soldier handed a punishment to 210 days. An effort to try other suspects over a severe beating including assault resulted in political demonstrations and the arrest of Israel’s top military lawyer, with the accused individuals now requesting that allegations against them be withdrawn.
Lack of Accountability
“Despite this large quantity of casualties, throughout the conflict no one has faced arrest,” the representative stated. “There exist no prosecutions over any fatality.
“While these measures are being applied, every Palestinian in confinement faces risk, even the physically well individuals, also the young ones who have no health problems.”
High-Profile Cases
Certain fatalities in detention have been publicly known, such as a middle-aged healthcare leader who perished in detention after four months in confinement.
A prisoner detained alongside the individual reported that he was brought to the yard by correctional officers just prior to his demise, obviously hurt and unclothed from the hips downward. His remains has not been returned to Gaza.
Additional detainees who lost their lives in confinement by Israeli authorities are unidentified. Correctional authorities and armed services provided researchers with the total of fatalities in detention, and minimal additional information including the site where they died, but excluding the prisoners’ names.
Documentation Problems
For 21 instances, mostly people from Gaza, analysts were not able to connect the few details provided by officials to a casualty documented by human rights groups, via testimony from former inmates or reporting in the media.
The inmates’ next of kin might not have learned about their relatives’ casualties either, as Israel has created obstacles to monitor Palestinians it is detaining. For seven months at the start of the conflict, the defense forces refused to provide basic information about the condition of many of persons held in Gaza, effectively enacting a practice of unacknowledged detention, per the rights monitoring body.
Restricted Access
From May 2024, government bodies have established an email address for enquiries about Palestinians from Gaza, but this has led to just a partial and limited betterment. Analysts noted|observed|commented on
