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Per figures from Israel, a minimum of 98 Palestinians have died while in custody since October 2023. An advocacy organization operating from Israel has indicated that the true figure is likely substantially higher, as a result of hundreds of missing individuals in Gaza.

Study Results

A new investigation recorded deaths caused by assault, medical neglect, and starvation. Analysts employed official data requests, forensic reports, and discussions with lawyers, activists, family members, and eyewitnesses.

Official sources disclosed complete data only for the initial 240 days of the hostilities. Over this period, government statistics indicate an historically high casualty rate among detained Palestinians, averaging a life lost every four days.

Latest Data

Official armed forces last updated data on custodial deaths for May 2024, and detention administration by September 2024. Investigators discovered a further 35 fatalities in detention after these dates and validated them with government bodies.

Even with the aggregate figure of deaths recorded being much greater than other recent estimates, it likely fails to capture the entire scope of Palestinian loss, per the head of the prisoner monitoring division.

“Although we are providing evidence for a greater figure of fatalities than earlier indicated, this is not a full picture,” he explained. “We are sure that there are still detainees who lost their lives in confinement that we don’t know about.”

Non-Combatant Fatalities

Restricted government records shows that the majority of Palestinian detainees from Gaza who perished in jail were civilians, per a parallel inquiry.

During May of 2024, a military intelligence database following all fighters in Gaza, a registry of more than 47,000 identified persons, recorded just 21 casualties in detention. At that time, 65 Gazans from Gaza had lost their lives in jail.

Custodial Environment

Assault, abuse, and additional maltreatment of Palestinian individuals has become routine across Israel’s jail system during two years of conflict. Top government figures have openly admitted minimal sustenance and an underground jail detaining Palestinians who never see daylight.

Present and past prisoners and informants from the defense forces have all alleged widespread breaches of international law.

Institutionalized Cruelty

The systematic abuse was accompanied by a troubling surge in casualties documented across at least 12 detention centers in Israel. In the decade preceding the conflict, there were typically several casualties a year.

“This isn’t only a single occurrence sporadically. It is widespread and it will continue,” a spokesperson commented, partly due to the fact there is a culture of near total impunity for fatalities and maltreatment of Palestinian individuals.

Just one case of assaulting inmates has reached litigation, with the soldier handed a punishment to 210 days. A endeavor to prosecute others over a vicious assault including abuse led to right-wing protests and the detention of Israel’s senior defense attorney, with the accused individuals now requesting that charges against them be withdrawn.

Lack of Accountability

“Despite this mass number of casualties, over two years not one individual has been arrested,” the representative noted. “There have been no prosecutions over any fatality.

“While these policies continue to be enforced, each Palestinian individual in detention is at peril, even the those in good health, also the youth who have no health problems.”

High-Profile Cases

Several casualties in custody have been high profile, including a senior hospital director who died in prison after 120 days in custody.

An inmate detained alongside the victim testified that he was led to the exercise area by guards shortly before his demise, visibly injured and unclothed from the waist down. His remains has not been returned to Gaza.

Other prisoners who died in detention in Israel stay unnamed. Correctional authorities and military provided researchers with the total of fatalities in confinement, and limited other details such as the facility where they died, but without the inmates’ personal details.

Documentation Problems

Regarding 21 occurrences, mostly people from Gaza, analysts could not to match the minimal data supplied by government bodies to a fatality recorded by advocacy bodies, via testimony from former inmates or reporting in the press.

The detainees’ families might not have learned about their relatives’ casualties as well, as Israel has impeded efforts to track Palestinian individuals it is detaining. For seven months at the outset of the war, the defense forces declined to supply basic information about the status of thousands of people detained in Gaza, in effect enacting a policy of forced disappearance, as stated by the human rights group.

Restricted Access

Beginning last May, government bodies have established an digital correspondence for inquiries about Palestinians from Gaza, but this has resulted in merely a modest and inadequate improvement. Investigators noted|observed|commented on