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Based on information provided by Israel, at least 98 detainees from Palestine have perished while detained beginning in October 2023. An advocacy organization operating from Israel has reported that the real figure is almost certainly considerably higher, because of hundreds of missing detainees in Gaza.

Report Findings

A new investigation tracked deaths attributed to physical violence, medical neglect, and inadequate nutrition. Investigators used freedom of information requests, autopsy findings, and discussions with lawyers, advocates, next of kin, and eyewitnesses.

Government bodies provided comprehensive statistics only for the opening period of the hostilities. During this time, reported numbers indicate an historically high casualty rate among Palestinian prisoners, equating to a life lost every four days.

Updated Statistics

Israeli defense forces last updated records on custodial deaths for May 2024, and detention administration in September 2024. Investigators documented an additional 35 deaths in custody after these dates and confirmed them with government bodies.

Even with the aggregate figure of fatalities charted being much greater than earlier projections, it likely does not reflect the entire scope of Palestinian casualties, as stated by the leader of the prisoners and detainees department.

“Even though we are presenting proof for a higher number of casualties than once estimated, this is an incomplete account,” he explained. “We are certain that there are still detainees who perished in custody that we don’t know about.”

Non-Combatant Fatalities

Restricted government records indicates that the vast majority of Palestinian prisoners from Gaza who perished in jail were civilians, per a related inquiry.

During May of 2024, a military intelligence database following all combatants in Gaza, a roster of more than 47,000 listed people, listed just 21 fatalities in detention. By that date, 65 Palestinians from Gaza had lost their lives in prison.

Detention Conditions

Physical violence, mistreatment, and other abuse of Palestinian individuals has become routine across Israel’s prison network over the duration of hostilities. High-ranking authorities have openly admitted starvation rations and an below-ground detention center confining Palestinians who are kept in darkness.

Current and former inmates and informants from the defense forces have all alleged widespread breaches of global standards.

Institutionalized Cruelty

The organized mistreatment occurred alongside a alarming increase in casualties registered across a minimum of 12 detention centers in Israel. During the previous decade before the war, there were on average several casualties a year.

“This is not just an individual case sporadically. It is widespread and it is expected to endure,” a representative commented, partially since there is a culture of virtual exemption from consequences for harming and abusing Palestinians.

Just one case of beating prisoners has reached litigation, with the military personnel sentenced to half a year. An effort to prosecute additional individuals over a brutal attack involving abuse led to political demonstrations and the arrest of Israel’s chief legal officer, with the suspects now demanding that allegations against them be dismissed.

Lack of Accountability

“In spite of this mass number of casualties, throughout the conflict not one individual has been arrested,” the representative noted. “There are no prosecutions over any death.

“While these practices remain in effect, every Palestinian in confinement is at peril, also the those in good health, also the young ones who have no underlying conditions.”

Prominent Examples

Several casualties in custody have been widely reported, including a 50-year-old healthcare leader who perished in confinement after a third of a year in custody.

A prisoner held with the victim reported that he was taken to the exercise area by guards just prior to his passing, clearly wounded and unclothed from the waist down. His body remains unreleased to Gaza.

Other prisoners who died in detention in Israel stay unnamed. Correctional authorities and defense forces provided investigators with the figure of deaths in confinement, and limited additional information for example the facility where they lost their lives, but not the detainees’ identities.

Identification Challenges

Regarding 21 occurrences, mainly detainees from Gaza, investigators were not able to connect the few details supplied by government bodies to a death documented by advocacy bodies, by means of testimony from freed prisoners or accounts in the press.

The prisoners’ relatives may not know about their relatives’ casualties as well, as Israel has created obstacles to track Palestinian individuals it is detaining. For seven months at the outset of the war, the Israeli military refused to provide basic information about the condition of numerous of individuals detained in Gaza, in effect enacting a policy of forced disappearance, according to the rights monitoring body.

Restricted Access

From May 2024, officials have created an email address for inquiries about detainees from Gaza, but this has provided only a incomplete and restricted improvement. Researchers noted|observed|commented on