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Per figures provided by Israel, a minimum of 98 Palestinian individuals have lost their lives while in custody since October 2023. An advocacy organization operating from Israel has reported that the true number is likely significantly higher, due to numerous of missing people in Gaza.

Report Findings

A new investigation recorded fatalities caused by physical violence, medical neglect, and starvation. Investigators used transparency petitions, autopsy findings, and testimonies with lawyers, advocates, relatives, and observers.

Official sources provided detailed statistics solely covering the opening period of the conflict. During this time, reported numbers show an historically high death toll among Palestinian prisoners, amounting to one death once every four-day period.

Recent Figures

Israeli defense forces most recently revised data on custodial deaths for May 2024, and correctional authorities in September 2024. Investigators documented another 35 deaths in confinement subsequent to these dates and confirmed them with Israeli authorities.

Despite the total number of fatalities charted being significantly higher than earlier projections, it almost certainly fails to capture the entire scope of Palestinian loss, per the head of the detainee affairs unit.

“Although we are providing evidence for a larger total of fatalities than earlier indicated, this is an incomplete account,” he explained. “We are confident that there are yet detainees who died in detention that we are unaware of.”

Non-Combatant Fatalities

Confidential official information indicates that the vast majority of Palestinian prisoners from Gaza who lost their lives in detention were civilians, based on a related inquiry.

In May of this year, a military intelligence database following all fighters in Gaza, a list of in excess of 47,000 named individuals, recorded only 21 casualties in custody. By that date, 65 Gazans from Gaza had died in prison.

Custodial Environment

Physical violence, torture, and further cruelty of Palestinian individuals is now standard practice across Israel’s jail system over 24 months of conflict. Senior officials have publicly referenced minimal sustenance and an underground jail confining Palestinians who are denied sunlight.

Present and past detainees and whistleblowers from the armed services have collectively claimed routine infractions of human rights protocols.

Organized Maltreatment

The systematic abuse occurred alongside a troubling surge in casualties recorded across a minimum of 12 civilian and military facilities in Israel. Over ten years preceding the conflict, there were on average two or three casualties a year.

“This is not merely an isolated incident here and there. It is systemic and it will continue,” an official stated, in part due to the fact there is a culture of virtual exemption from consequences for killing and mistreating Palestinian individuals.

Merely one incident of assaulting detainees has proceeded to court, with the soldier given a penalty to seven months. An attempt to try others over a severe beating involving sexual violence resulted in right-wing protests and the detention of Israel’s chief legal officer, with the accused individuals now insisting that charges against them be withdrawn.

No Legal Action

“In spite of this mass number of deaths, throughout the conflict not one individual has been detained,” the spokesperson noted. “There are no indictments over any fatality.

“As long as these policies are being applied, each Palestinian individual in custody faces risk, even the physically well individuals, even the young ones who have no medical issues.”

Prominent Examples

Certain fatalities in confinement have been high profile, including a senior hospital director who lost his life in confinement after four months in confinement.

A detainee held with the victim stated that he was brought to the courtyard by correctional officers immediately preceding his passing, visibly injured and exposed from the hips downward. His body has not been returned to Gaza.

Further inmates who perished in confinement by Israeli authorities are unidentified. Detention administrators and armed services gave analysts with the total of casualties in detention, and basic additional information for example the location where they died, but without the prisoners’ names.

Identification Challenges

For 21 instances, mainly individuals from Gaza, analysts could not to correlate the few details supplied by authorities to a fatality registered by rights organisations, via statements from former inmates or accounts in the news outlets.

The prisoners’ relatives could be unaware about their loved ones’ deaths either, as Israel has created obstacles to locate detainees it is detaining. During 210 days at the start of the conflict, the Israeli military would not provide to provide essential data about the whereabouts of thousands of individuals detained in Gaza, effectively carrying out a policy of involuntary missing persons, as stated by the rights monitoring body.

Limited Transparency

Beginning last May, government bodies have created an email address for requests about Palestinians from Gaza, but this has resulted in merely a partial and limited betterment. Analysts noted|observed|commented on