Inside Israel’s Fatal Detention System
What emerges is a portrait of a detention apparatus transformed by war into something far more violent. Palestinians from both the West Bank and Gaza died in civilian prisons run by the Israel Prison Service as well as in military facilities,
(21WIRE)
Physicians for Human Rights – Israel’s new report reads like a grim ledger of a system collapsing into cruelty. Drawing on months of documentation, testimonies and preliminary autopsy findings, the organisation describes a pattern of Palestinian deaths in Israeli custody so widespread and consistent that it argues they can no longer be dismissed as aberrations. At least 94 Palestinians died in detention between October 2023 and August 2025, with more deaths recorded shortly after the report was finalised. The organisation warns that the true toll is likely higher, concealed by the practice of enforced disappearances and a near-total lack of transparency.
Report / Position Paper: Deaths Of Palestinians In Israeli Custody: Enforced Disappearances, Systematic Killings, And Cover-Ups – Authored by Naji Abbas and Oneg Ben Dror. CLICK HERE TO READ>>> Physicians for Human Rights – Israel (PHRI))
What emerges is a portrait of a detention apparatus transformed by war into something far more violent. Palestinians from both the West Bank and Gaza died in civilian prisons run by the Israel Prison Service as well as in military facilities, a distribution that PHR-IL says reflects a systemic phenomenon rather than isolated misconduct. The accounts are harrowing: bodies bearing signs of blunt-force trauma, internal bleeding and fractured ribs; detainees wasting away from untreated illness or profound malnutrition; people denied even the most basic medical care as their condition deteriorated.
Equally disturbing is the anatomy of concealment described in the report. Families often learned of deaths days or weeks after they occurred, if they were informed at all. Investigations were delayed, obstructed or quietly closed. Even when autopsies pointed to violence or neglect, there were no meaningful consequences for those responsible. PHR-IL depicts a system in which oversight has withered, accountability has evaporated and the distinction between negligence and intention has blurred to the point of erasure.
IMAGE: A Palestinian flag on the fence of Israel’s Ofer prison near the city of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank (Source: ABBAS MOMANI / AFP
The report’s implications reach far beyond the prison walls. If the patterns it describes are accurate, they amount to the normalisation of lethal practices against detainees, carried out under the cover of war and shielded by institutional indifference. For Palestinian families, the findings offer both a measure of truth and a reminder of how little information they have been permitted to access about what happened to their loved ones. For the international community, the report reads as a call to attention, an urgent argument for an independent investigation capable of uncovering what the domestic system has failed to confront.
PHR-IL insists that every Palestinian in Israeli custody now lives under a shadow of mortal danger. Whether this warning will prompt meaningful scrutiny or simply join the long archive of unheeded alarms remains uncertain. But the report leaves little doubt about the scale of the crisis it describes, and its final message is stark: behind the walls of Israel’s detention facilities, death has ceased to be an anomaly and has become, instead, an expected outcome.
IMAGE: Handcuffed Palestinians are forced to sit in front of a picture of destruction caused by Israel’s onslaught on the Gaza Strip and an Israeli flag, in a prison in central Israel, May 6, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
Physicians for Human Rights | Israel (PHRI) reports…
Death Sentence for Palestinians in Custody | New Report and Testimonies
The report is based on 94 documented cases between October 7, 2023, and August 2025. This 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.
Our latest report reveals that over the past two years, up to August 2025, at least 94 Palestinians have died in Israeli detention facilities. Yet, the report stresses that this unprecedented figure likely represents only a portion of the full death toll. Given the Israeli military’s practice of enforced disappearances since October 2023, the actual number of deaths may be considerably higher. Moreover, since the report was completed, four more Palestinians have died in the past month alone, pushing the total close to triple digits – deaths caused by the systemic denial of medical care and the torture of Palestinians in Israeli custody. These policies persist even now, despite the ceasefire in Gaza.
The report is based on 94 documented cases between October 7, 2023, and August 2025. This 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.
At least 46 Palestinians died in Israel Prison Service (IPS) facilities, and 52 more died in military custody. Of the 94 deaths documented in the report, along with four additional cases recorded since its completion, 46 occurred under IPS custody, and another 52 Palestinians, all from the Gaza Strip, died while held by the military. The data makes clear that deaths have occurred across all detention facilities, not as isolated incidents but as part of a broader policy implemented consistently in both IPS and military facilities over the past two years.
Initial post-mortem findings released by the families of the deceased, along with testimonies gathered by attorneys who visited the prisons and medical information obtained prior to some of the deaths, point to a systematic pattern of severe violence – including head trauma, internal hemorrhages, and broken ribs. Other cases expose grave medical neglect, including extreme malnutrition and the denial of life-saving care.
The report also outlines the various ways in which Israel has concealed these deaths and blocked efforts to carry out any meaningful investigation into their circumstances. As a result, no one implicated in these cases has been held accountable to date, reflecting an ongoing pattern of cover-ups, lack of oversight, and institutional rejection of responsibility.
The record number of Palestinian deaths in Israeli detention, combined with evidence exposing the systematic nature of these killings, reinforces PHRI’s warnings over the past two years that every Palestinian in Israeli custody faces an imminent threat to their life and health. The report further highlights the urgent need for an independent international investigation that will bring an end to these systematic killings, ensure accountability, and bring closure to victims’ families.
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