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Based on information provided by Israel, no fewer than 98 detainees from Palestine have died while in custody beginning in October 2023. A rights monitoring body based in Israel has stated that the true toll is probably significantly larger, due to many of unaccounted for individuals originating in Gaza.

Report Findings

A new investigation tracked deaths resulting from brutality, lack of healthcare, and inadequate nutrition. Researchers used freedom of information requests, forensic reports, and interviews with legal representatives, activists, relatives, and observers.

Government bodies disclosed detailed data limited to the first eight months of the hostilities. During this time, reported numbers reveal an unprecedented casualty rate among detained Palestinians, amounting to one death each 96 hours.

Updated Statistics

Israeli defense forces most recently revised data on deaths in detention for May 2024, and the prison service during September 2024. Investigators identified an additional 35 casualties in detention after these dates and confirmed them with government bodies.

Despite the overall count of deaths recorded being much greater than previous assessments, it probably does not reflect the full scale of losses among Palestinians, according to the director of the prisoner monitoring division.

“Although we are offering documentation for a larger total of fatalities than once estimated, this is an incomplete account,” he said. “We are confident that there are even now people who lost their lives in confinement that we are unaware of.”

Civilian Deaths

Confidential government records indicates that the majority of incarcerated Palestinians from Gaza who perished in jail were civilians, based on a parallel examination.

In May of 2024, a military intelligence database following all combatants in Gaza, a registry of more than 47,000 listed people, listed merely 21 deaths in confinement. By that date, 65 Gazans from Gaza had died in prison.

Detention Conditions

Brutality, mistreatment, and other abuse of Palestinian individuals is now standard practice across Israel’s prison network during two years of hostilities. Top government figures have publicly referenced minimal sustenance and an underground jail holding Palestinian individuals who never see daylight.

Present and past inmates and informants from the defense forces have uniformly asserted routine infractions of international law.

Systemic Abuse

The systematic abuse was accompanied by a disturbing rise in fatalities registered across no fewer than 12 prison sites in Israel. In the decade prior to the hostilities, there were typically two or three deaths a year.

“This isn’t only a single occurrence occasionally. It is widespread and it is expected to endure,” a representative said, partly since there is a climate of virtual exemption from consequences for killing and mistreating Palestinians.

Just one case of assaulting prisoners has come to trial, with the service member handed a punishment to half a year. An attempt to prosecute others over a brutal attack featuring abuse caused public rallies and the apprehension of Israel’s senior defense attorney, with the accused individuals now demanding that charges against them are dropped.

Lack of Accountability

“Despite this large quantity of fatalities, during 24 months not one individual has been arrested,” the official stated. “There exist no indictments over any death.

“While these measures are being applied, all Palestinian detainees in detention faces risk, even the physically well individuals, also the juveniles who have no underlying conditions.”

High-Profile Cases

Certain fatalities in confinement have been widely reported, for instance a 50-year-old healthcare leader who lost his life in prison after a third of a year in confinement.

A prisoner held with the victim testified that he was brought to the yard by guards just prior to his passing, clearly wounded and exposed from the lower body. His body remains unreleased to Gaza.

Further inmates who lost their lives in detention in Israel remain anonymous. Correctional authorities and defense forces provided investigators with the figure of fatalities in confinement, and limited additional information including the location where they perished, but without the inmates’ personal details.

Identification Challenges

In 21 cases, mostly people from Gaza, investigators were not able to match the few details provided by officials to a death documented by rights organisations, via statements from freed prisoners or coverage in the press.

The prisoners’ relatives might not have learned about their relatives’ casualties also, as Israel has created obstacles to locate Palestinian individuals it is confining. Over half a year at the outset of the war, the armed services refused to give fundamental details about the status of thousands of people held in Gaza, in effect carrying out a practice of involuntary missing persons, as stated by the advocacy organization.

Restricted Access

Starting in May 2024, authorities have provided an electronic contact for inquiries about detainees from Gaza, but this has provided only a partial and limited enhancement. Investigators noted|observed|commented on