At Least 98 Palestinians Lost Their Lives in Custody Since October 2023, Statistics from Israel Indicates

According to figures from Israel, a minimum of 98 Palestinian individuals have died while in custody since October 2023. A human rights group based in Israel has stated that the real number is probably significantly greater, due to many of disappeared people originating in Gaza.

Investigation Outcomes

An updated study tracked casualties attributed to brutality, failure to provide medical care, and malnutrition. Analysts utilized freedom of information requests, autopsy findings, and testimonies with legal representatives, advocates, relatives, and witnesses.

Government bodies released comprehensive data only for the initial 240 days of the conflict. Throughout these months, official figures reveal an historically high death toll among Palestinian detainees, averaging a life lost every four days.

Latest Data

The military finalized information on deaths in detention for May 2024, and detention administration in September 2024. Investigators discovered a further 35 casualties in detention after these dates and validated them with official sources.

Despite the overall count of deaths charted being much greater than earlier projections, it almost certainly fails to capture the full scale of losses among Palestinians, per the leader of the prisoners and detainees department.

“Although we are providing evidence for a greater figure of fatalities than earlier indicated, this is not a full picture,” he stated. “We are confident that there are yet detainees who lost their lives in custody that we are unaware of.”

Civilian Deaths

Restricted official information suggests that the vast majority of incarcerated Palestinians from Gaza who lost their lives in detention were non-combatants, according to a related inquiry.

During May of the current year, a armed services record monitoring all fighters in Gaza, a roster of over 47,000 listed people, recorded only 21 deaths in detention. By that point, 65 individuals from Palestine from Gaza had perished in jail.

Detention Conditions

Physical violence, mistreatment, and other abuse of Palestinians has been normalised across Israel’s prison network throughout two years of hostilities. Top government figures have openly admitted inadequate food and an below-ground detention center detaining detainees who are denied sunlight.

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

Organized Maltreatment

The organized mistreatment occurred alongside a disturbing rise in casualties recorded across at least 12 prison sites in Israel. Over ten years preceding the conflict, there were usually two or three fatalities a year.

“This isn’t just an individual case occasionally. It is institutional and it is likely to persist,” a spokesperson stated, in part because there is a culture of almost complete immunity for fatalities and maltreatment of Palestinian individuals.

Merely one incident of assaulting prisoners has proceeded to court, with the military personnel sentenced to seven months. An effort to prosecute additional individuals over a vicious assault involving abuse caused public rallies and the detention of Israel’s top military lawyer, with the alleged perpetrators now insisting that indictments against them be withdrawn.

No Legal Action

“In spite of this significant total of deaths, over two years not one individual has been detained,” the spokesperson noted. “There exist no prosecutions over any death.

“As long as these policies continue to be enforced, each Palestinian individual in confinement is at peril, also the physically well individuals, even the juveniles who have no underlying conditions.”

Notable Incidents

Several casualties in custody have been high profile, including a senior medical chief who perished in detention after a third of a year in confinement.

A prisoner held with the individual reported that he was led to the yard by correctional officers shortly before his passing, visibly injured and unclothed from the waist down. His body has not been repatriated to Gaza.

Further inmates who perished in detention in Israel remain anonymous. The prison service and military gave analysts with the figure of casualties in detention, and minimal other details such as the facility where they perished, but excluding the inmates’ personal details.

Identification Challenges

In 21 cases, primarily individuals from Gaza, investigators were unable to correlate the limited information given by government bodies to a casualty documented by human rights groups, via statements from released detainees or accounts in the media.

The prisoners’ relatives might not have learned about their loved ones’ deaths also, as Israel has created obstacles to monitor detainees it is holding. During 210 days at the start of the hostilities, the Israeli military refused to supply essential data about the condition of numerous of persons confined in Gaza, practically enacting a policy of unacknowledged detention, according to the human rights group.

Restricted Access

From May 2024, officials have established an electronic contact for enquiries about Palestinian individuals from Gaza, but this has led to just a partial and limited betterment. Researchers noted|observed|commented on