No Fewer Than 98 Palestinian Detainees Have Died in Custody Starting From October 2023, Official Figures Shows
Per data from Israel, at least 98 Palestinians have perished while in custody beginning in October 2023. A rights monitoring body located in Israel has reported that the true number is almost certainly considerably greater, due to hundreds of missing detainees from Gaza.
Investigation Outcomes
A new investigation tracked fatalities resulting from physical violence, medical neglect, and starvation. Analysts used transparency petitions, forensic reports, and discussions with attorneys, human rights defenders, family members, and observers.
Official sources disclosed comprehensive information only for the first eight months of the conflict. During this time, government statistics indicate an historically high fatality rate among detained Palestinians, equating to a single fatality each 96 hours.
Recent Figures
The military last updated data on detention fatalities for May 2024, and correctional authorities by September 2024. Analysts discovered another 35 casualties in confinement following these periods and validated them with government bodies.
Even with the overall count of fatalities charted being significantly higher than previous assessments, it likely omits the full scale of Palestinian loss, according to the head of the prisoners and detainees department.
“While we are presenting proof for a higher number of casualties than earlier indicated, this is an incomplete account,” he explained. “We are sure that there are yet detainees who lost their lives in confinement that we have not identified.”
Non-Combatant Fatalities
Confidential Israeli data shows that the vast majority of Palestinian detainees from Gaza who lost their lives in detention were non-combatants, based on a simultaneous inquiry.
By May of this year, a defense forces registry following all fighters in Gaza, a registry of more than 47,000 identified persons, listed just 21 fatalities in custody. At that time, 65 Gazans from Gaza had perished in jail.
Custodial Environment
Physical violence, torture, and other abuse of Palestinians has been normalised across Israel’s detention facilities over 24 months of conflict. High-ranking authorities have publicly acknowledged minimal sustenance and an below-ground detention center holding Palestinians who are kept in darkness.
Current and former inmates and insiders from the defense forces have uniformly asserted routine infractions of global standards.
Institutionalized Cruelty
The organized mistreatment came with a alarming increase in deaths recorded across at least 12 prison sites in Israel. During the previous decade preceding the hostilities, there were typically two or three deaths a year.
“This isn’t just an individual case occasionally. It is systemic and it is expected to endure,” a representative stated, in part since there is a environment of near total impunity for killing and mistreating detainees.
Just one case of assaulting prisoners has reached litigation, with the military personnel given a penalty to seven months. An effort to prosecute others over a vicious assault including assault caused political demonstrations and the detention of Israel’s top military lawyer, with the suspects now insisting that indictments against them are dropped.
No Legal Action
“Regardless of this mass number of fatalities, over two years not a single person has been arrested,” the spokesperson said. “There are no prosecutions over any killing.
“While these practices remain in effect, all Palestinian detainees in detention is in danger, even the those in good health, even the juveniles who have no medical issues.”
Prominent Examples
Several casualties in custody have been high profile, including a 50-year-old medical chief who lost his life in detention after 120 days in confinement.
An inmate detained alongside the individual reported that he was taken to the courtyard by guards shortly before his passing, obviously hurt and unclothed from the waist down. His corpse has not been returned to Gaza.
Additional detainees who lost their lives in detention in Israel are unidentified. Detention administrators and defense forces provided researchers with the total of deaths in confinement, and basic further data such as the location where they perished, but excluding the inmates’ personal details.
Identification Challenges
Regarding 21 occurrences, mostly people from Gaza, researchers could not to connect the minimal data supplied by government bodies to a death registered by human rights groups, via accounts from released detainees or reporting in the news outlets.
The detainees’ families might not have learned about their relatives’ casualties as well, as Israel has impeded efforts to locate detainees it is holding. Over half a year at the beginning of the conflict, the defense forces refused to give fundamental details about the status of many of persons confined in Gaza, effectively carrying out a practice of forced disappearance, according to the rights monitoring body.
Insufficient Disclosure
From May 2024, government bodies have provided an digital correspondence for inquiries about Palestinians from Gaza, but this has provided only a modest and inadequate enhancement. Researchers noted|observed|commented on
