Israeli official data shows at least 98 Palestinians have died in custody since October 2023, according to a new report by Physicians for Human Rights – Israel (PHRI). The human rights group said the real toll is likely substantially higher because hundreds of people detained in Gaza remain unaccounted for.
PHRI tracked deaths from causes including physical violence, medical neglect and malnutrition, using freedom of information requests, forensic reports and interviews with lawyers, activists, relatives and witnesses. Israeli authorities provided comprehensive data only for the first eight months of the war, during which official figures showed on average one death every four days among Palestinian detainees.
The Israeli military last updated death-in-detention data for May 2024, and the Israel Prison Service in September 2024. PHRI researchers identified a further 35 deaths after these dates and confirmed them with Israeli authorities. Naji Abbas, director of PHRI's prisoners and detainees department, said the documented number was not a full picture: “We are sure that there are still people who died in detention that we don’t know about.”
Classified Israeli data indicates that most Palestinian prisoners from Gaza who died in jail were civilians, according to a parallel investigation by the Guardian, +972 Magazine and Local Call. A military intelligence database listing more than 47,000 named Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters recorded only 21 custody deaths by May 2024, when 65 Palestinians from Gaza had already died in jail.
The deaths cover “security prisoners”, including Gazans held without charge or trial and prisoners of conscience from the occupied West Bank. Three of the dead were Palestinian citizens or residents of Israel. Physical violence and torture have been normalised across Israel's jail system during the war, with National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir boasting of starvation rations and an underground jail where Palestinians never see daylight.
Abbas said the deaths were systemic and would continue, citing a culture of near-total impunity. Only one case of assaulting detainees has come to trial, resulting in a seven-month sentence. No one has been charged over any killing. Among those who died was Adnan al-Bursh, head of orthopaedics at al-Shifa hospital, who died in Ofer prison after four months in detention. A fellow prisoner testified that Bursh was brought to the yard by guards shortly before his death, visibly injured and naked from the waist down. His body has not been returned to Gaza.
