Abdel Ra'ouf Arnaout, Awad Al-Rjoub and Rania Abu Shamala
17 November 2025•Update: 17 November 2025
JERUSALEM/ISTANBUL
At least 98 Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, an Israeli human rights group said Monday.
The findings were published in a report issued by Physicians for Human Rights–Israel, which said the report is based on official responses, medical documents, autopsy reports, testimonies from medical staff and released detainees, and other human rights sources.
The organization said Israel has concealed the causes of death among Palestinian detainees in its prisons and continues to hide the true number of victims, warning that the real figure is likely much higher.
It accused Israel of carrying out a policy of systematic killing, ill-treatment, and medical neglect against Palestinian prisoners.
“The unprecedented toll, together with extensive findings and evidence of deaths caused by torture and medical neglect, points to a deliberate Israeli policy of killing Palestinians in custody,” said Oneg Ben Dror, a project coordinator in the organization’s Prisoners and Detainees Department.
The rights group said 98 Palestinians lost their lives in Israeli custody, including 94 documented deaths between October 2023 and August 2025. It added that four other fatalities were recorded during October and November of this year alone.
The report includes only deaths that occurred inside Israeli prisons and detention centers and does not include seven additional documented cases of Palestinians executed by gunfire shortly after their arrest.
The rights group said that the fatalities included 52 detainees from Gaza.
There was no comment from the Israel Prison Service nor the army on the report.
Severe violence
The Israeli group said the report revealed a repeated pattern of severe violence by prison guards alongside serious medical neglect of Palestinian detainees.
It said that an examination of ten autopsy reports showed signs of physical violence in nearly half the cases, including head injuries, internal bleeding, and rib fractures.
Other medical reports documented cases of extreme malnutrition, denial of insulin for diabetic patients, failure to treat cancer, and the presence of life-threatening infections.
The organization noted that these findings correspond with extensive documentation over the past two years of hunger, dehydration, and prolonged exposure to extreme cold and heat in Israeli detention centers.
The report dedicated significant space to describing the methods used by Israeli authorities for “concealing the causes of death and obstructing families from uncovering the truth about the circumstances in which their relatives died.”
The Palestinian Prisoner Society said that the number of detainees who died in Israeli detention exceeded 100.
“Estimates indicate that the number of detainees who died in prisons is higher than 100,” Abdullah al-Zagari, who heads the organization, said in a statement.
He added that Palestinian institutions were able to document only 81 deaths among prisoners in Israeli custody.
The declared figure “confirms the gravity of the ongoing crime against prisoners and detainees in Israeli prisons, who are being subjected to another form of extermination,” he said.
The Israeli army launched a brutal offensive on Gaza in October 2023, killing more than 69,000 people, mostly women and children, injuring over 170,000 others, and arresting thousands. The assault came to a halt under a ceasefire agreement that took effect on Oct. 10.
