At Least 98 Palestinians Lost Their Lives in Custody Since October 2023, Israeli Data Reveals

According to information from Israel, a minimum of 98 detainees from Palestine have lost their lives during detention since October 2023. A rights monitoring body based in Israel has reported that the real figure is probably significantly larger, due to hundreds of disappeared people from Gaza.

Report Findings

A new investigation tracked fatalities resulting from assault, medical neglect, and malnutrition. Researchers employed official data requests, autopsy findings, and interviews with attorneys, human rights defenders, relatives, and observers.

Official sources provided detailed data only for the opening period of the hostilities. Over this period, reported numbers indicate an unprecedented casualty rate among detained Palestinians, averaging a single fatality once every four-day period.

Updated Statistics

The military most recently revised records on detention fatalities for May 2024, and detention administration by September 2024. Investigators discovered an additional 35 casualties in confinement following these timeframes and verified them with government bodies.

Although the total number of deaths recorded being significantly higher than earlier projections, it likely fails to capture the complete extent of Palestinian casualties, as stated by the director of the prisoner monitoring division.

“Although we are providing evidence for a greater figure of fatalities than previously reported, this is not the entire story,” he stated. “We are confident that there are still detainees who perished in confinement that we don’t know about.”

Non-Combatant Fatalities

Classified Israeli data shows that the vast majority of Palestinian prisoners from Gaza who died in prison were civilians, according to a parallel examination.

During May of 2024, a military intelligence database monitoring all fighters in Gaza, a registry of over 47,000 named individuals, recorded just 21 fatalities in confinement. At that time, 65 Gazans from Gaza had lost their lives in detention.

Custodial Environment

Assault, torture, and other abuse of Palestinians has been normalised across Israel’s prison network over two years of conflict. Senior officials have publicly acknowledged minimal sustenance and an below-ground detention center confining Palestinians who are kept in darkness.

Existing and previous prisoners and informants from the armed services have collectively claimed widespread breaches of global standards.

Organized Maltreatment

The institutionalised cruelty was accompanied by a disturbing rise in deaths recorded across at least 12 detention centers in Israel. During the previous decade before the war, there were on average two or three deaths a year.

“This does not represent merely an isolated incident sporadically. It is widespread and it is expected to endure,” a spokesperson said, partly due to the fact there is a culture of near total impunity for fatalities and maltreatment of Palestinian individuals.

Only a single instance of beating inmates has reached litigation, with the service member sentenced to half a year. A endeavor to prosecute others over a brutal attack involving abuse led to political demonstrations and the arrest of Israel’s chief legal officer, with the alleged perpetrators now insisting that charges against them are dropped.

No Legal Action

“Regardless of this mass number of fatalities, during 24 months no one has been arrested,” the spokesperson said. “There are no charges over any fatality.

“As long as these measures remain in effect, each Palestinian individual in confinement is at peril, even the physically well individuals, also the juveniles who have no underlying conditions.”

Notable Incidents

Certain fatalities in custody have been publicly known, including a 50-year-old medical chief who lost his life in detention after a third of a year in custody.

An inmate held with the victim testified that he was taken to the courtyard by guards shortly before his passing, obviously hurt and exposed from the lower body. His body has not been returned to Gaza.

Other prisoners who died in confinement by Israeli authorities remain anonymous. The prison service and military provided investigators with the total of fatalities in custody, and limited further data including the location where they perished, but not the prisoners’ names.

Identification Challenges

Regarding 21 occurrences, primarily detainees from Gaza, investigators were unable to correlate the few details provided by officials to a death recorded by rights organisations, either through statements from former inmates or coverage in the media.

The inmates’ next of kin could be unaware about their family members’ fatalities either, as Israel has made it difficult to locate detainees it is holding. During 210 days at the outset of the war, the Israeli military declined to give fundamental details about the status of numerous of persons confined in Gaza, in effect enacting a practice of involuntary missing persons, as stated by the advocacy organization.

Limited Transparency

Beginning last May, officials have provided an digital correspondence for requests about Palestinian individuals from Gaza, but this has led to just a modest and inadequate improvement. Investigators noted|observed|commented on