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Per information released by Israel, no fewer than 98 detainees from Palestine have died during detention starting from October 2023. A human rights group located in Israel has reported that the real figure is almost certainly substantially higher, due to hundreds of unaccounted for detainees in Gaza.

Study Results

A new investigation recorded casualties resulting from physical violence, failure to provide medical care, and starvation. Investigators used official data requests, medical examiner documents, and discussions with attorneys, human rights defenders, relatives, and eyewitnesses.

Government bodies disclosed comprehensive data only for the opening period of the hostilities. Over this period, official figures reveal an historically high casualty rate among detained Palestinians, averaging a life lost each 96 hours.

Latest Data

Official armed forces last updated records on custodial deaths for May 2024, and correctional authorities by September 2024. Analysts identified an additional 35 casualties in custody following these dates and validated them with government bodies.

Although the aggregate figure of fatalities charted being significantly higher than other recent estimates, it likely fails to capture the full scale of losses among Palestinians, as stated by the leader of the prisoners and detainees department.

“While we are offering documentation for a larger total of casualties than previously reported, this is not the entire story,” he said. “We are certain that there are even now people who died in custody that we have not identified.”

Civilian Casualties

Confidential Israeli data indicates that the vast majority of incarcerated Palestinians from Gaza who lost their lives in prison were civilians, based on a related inquiry.

By May of the current year, a defense forces registry tracking all fighters in Gaza, a list of more than 47,000 listed people, documented merely 21 deaths in custody. By that date, 65 individuals from Palestine from Gaza had perished in detention.

Prison Situation

Physical violence, torture, and additional maltreatment of detainees from Palestine has been normalised across Israel’s prison network over two years of hostilities. Senior officials have openly admitted minimal sustenance and an underground jail confining Palestinian individuals who never see daylight.

Current and former detainees and insiders from the Israeli military have collectively claimed systemic violations of global standards.

Systemic Abuse

The systematic abuse was accompanied by a troubling surge in casualties recorded across a minimum of 12 civilian and military facilities in Israel. Over ten years prior to the conflict, there were usually a couple deaths a year.

“This isn’t only a single occurrence here and there. It is institutional and it will continue,” an official said, partially due to the fact there is a culture of almost complete immunity for killing and mistreating Palestinians.

Just one case of beating prisoners has proceeded to court, with the soldier handed a punishment to half a year. An attempt to charge other suspects over a brutal attack involving sexual violence caused public rallies and the detention of Israel’s senior defense attorney, with the alleged perpetrators now insisting that indictments against them are dropped.

Absence of Consequences

“Regardless of this mass number of fatalities, throughout the conflict not one individual has been detained,” the official said. “There exist no prosecutions over any death.

“While these policies continue to be enforced, each Palestinian individual in detention faces risk, even the physically well individuals, also the juveniles who have no medical issues.”

Notable Incidents

Some deaths in detention have been widely reported, including a middle-aged medical chief who died in detention after 120 days in confinement.

An inmate incarcerated with the deceased reported that he was brought to the exercise area by guards immediately preceding his demise, clearly wounded and unclothed from the lower body. His body has not been repatriated to Gaza.

Other prisoners who perished in detention in Israel are unidentified. Correctional authorities and military gave analysts with the number of fatalities in detention, and limited other details including the location where they died, but not the prisoners’ names.

Documentation Problems

In 21 cases, primarily detainees from Gaza, researchers could not to correlate the limited information provided by officials to a death registered by human rights groups, by means of statements from former inmates or accounts in the press.

The inmates’ next of kin could be unaware about their loved ones’ deaths as well, as Israel has made it difficult to locate detainees it is holding. For seven months at the outset of the conflict, the armed services would not provide to give essential data about the whereabouts of numerous of persons confined in Gaza, practically implementing a practice of unacknowledged detention, according to the human rights group.

Insufficient Disclosure

From May 2024, government bodies have provided an digital correspondence for requests about detainees from Gaza, but this has led to just a partial and limited enhancement. Researchers noted|observed|commented on