At Least 98 Palestinian Detainees Have Died in Detention Since October 2023, Israeli Data Reveals
Per data provided by Israel, no fewer than 98 Palestinian individuals have lost their lives while in custody beginning in October 2023. A rights monitoring body located in Israel has indicated that the actual toll is probably significantly larger, due to hundreds of missing people in Gaza.
Study Results
An updated study recorded casualties resulting from assault, lack of healthcare, and malnutrition. Analysts utilized official data requests, autopsy findings, and discussions with lawyers, human rights defenders, relatives, and observers.
Official sources released complete statistics limited to the initial 240 days of the hostilities. Over this period, reported numbers reveal an record fatality rate among detained Palestinians, averaging one death each 96 hours.
Updated Statistics
Official armed forces most recently revised data on detention fatalities for May 2024, and the prison service by September 2024. Analysts identified a further 35 deaths in confinement subsequent to these timeframes and confirmed them with Israeli authorities.
Despite the aggregate figure of fatalities charted being significantly higher than previous assessments, it probably omits the full scale of Palestinian casualties, per the leader of the prisoner monitoring division.
“Although we are providing evidence for a larger total of fatalities than previously reported, this is not the entire story,” he said. “We are sure that there are still people who perished in custody that we don’t know about.”
Civilian Deaths
Classified Israeli data shows that the largest portion of Palestinian prisoners from Gaza who lost their lives in prison were civilians, per a related investigation.
In May of this year, a defense forces registry tracking all combatants in Gaza, a registry of more than 47,000 listed people, listed only 21 fatalities in custody. By that date, 65 Palestinians from Gaza had died in detention.
Custodial Environment
Assault, torture, and additional maltreatment of Palestinian individuals has become routine across Israel’s prison network during 24 months of conflict. High-ranking authorities have openly admitted inadequate food and an below-ground detention center detaining Palestinian individuals who are kept in darkness.
Existing and previous inmates and whistleblowers from the Israeli military have uniformly asserted widespread breaches of global standards.
Institutionalized Cruelty
The organized mistreatment was accompanied by a troubling surge in casualties registered across a minimum of 12 prison sites in Israel. Over ten years prior to the war, there were usually several casualties a year.
“This is not merely an isolated incident sporadically. It is widespread and it is likely to persist,” an official said, partly since there is a climate of virtual exemption from consequences for killing and mistreating Palestinians.
Merely one incident of attacking detainees has proceeded to court, with the service member sentenced to 210 days. An effort to try others over a severe beating including abuse caused right-wing protests and the detention of Israel’s chief legal officer, with the alleged perpetrators now requesting that indictments against them be dismissed.
No Legal Action
“In spite of this mass number of casualties, over two years not a single person has faced arrest,” the spokesperson said. “There have been no prosecutions over any fatality.
“During the time these policies continue to be enforced, every Palestinian in confinement is in danger, even the those in good health, also the young ones who have no underlying conditions.”
Prominent Examples
Several casualties in confinement have been publicly known, including a 50-year-old healthcare leader who died in detention after 120 days in detention.
A prisoner detained alongside the victim testified that he was taken to the courtyard by correctional officers just prior to his passing, clearly wounded and exposed from the lower body. His body has not been returned to Gaza.
Further inmates who died in detention in Israel remain anonymous. Correctional authorities and defense forces supplied analysts with the number of fatalities in detention, and basic further data such as the location where they lost their lives, but without the prisoners’ names.
Documentation Problems
Regarding 21 occurrences, mainly individuals from Gaza, researchers were unable to correlate the limited information supplied by authorities to a casualty documented by advocacy bodies, by means of testimony from freed prisoners or coverage in the news outlets.
The prisoners’ relatives might not have learned about their family members’ fatalities either, as Israel has impeded efforts to locate detainees it is confining. During 210 days at the beginning of the hostilities, the defense forces would not provide to provide essential data about the whereabouts of thousands of persons held in Gaza, in effect enacting a approach of involuntary missing persons, as stated by the advocacy organization.
Limited Transparency
Starting in May 2024, government bodies have created an email address for inquiries about Palestinian individuals from Gaza, but this has provided only a incomplete and restricted improvement. Researchers noted|observed|commented on
