TEL AVIV, 08 Dec. - (ANA) - More than 100 Palestinian detainees have died in Israeli custody in less than two-and-a-half years, amid rampant mistreatment of inmates under the extremist national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir.

 

New data reveals that at least 110 detainees died between January 2023 and June 2025, most of them in hospitals after being transferred from detention facilities, the Israeli news outlet Walla reported on Monday.

 

No comparable internal Israeli figures from before Ben-Gvir entered the ministry have been published, though human rights organisations that monitor conditions in Israeli prisons say that deaths numbered in the dozens.

 

Some 187 Palestinian prisoners died between 1967 and 2007, according to the Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Detainees.

 

The number of Palestinians in Israeli prisons has more than doubled since Israel launched its brutal war on Gaza in October 2023, which has since killed over 70,000 Palestinians.

 

As of September, almost 11,000 Palestinians were being held in detention or in prison, up from less than 5,000 before the war, according to Israeli rights monitor B'Tselem.

 

A report by Physicians for Human Rights Israel last month found that at least 94 Palestinians had died in detention between 7 October 2023 and 31 August 2025, a figure the organisation said was only a portion of the full death toll.

 

It said that the "unprecedented" numbers indicate a "deliberate Israeli policy of killing Palestinians in custody".

 

Evidence of torture and abuse has soared since Ben-Gvir took control of the Israeli prison system in 2023.

 

Ben-Gvir – the leader of the extremist party Jewish Power – is sponsoring a bill that would legalise the execution of Palestinian prisoners. He attended a hearing on the legislation on Monday, wearing a yellow noose-shaped pin.

 

A report by the UN committee against torture last month concluded that Israel has a "de facto state policy of organised and widespread torture".

 

The committee expressed "deep concern over allegations of repeated severe beatings, dog attacks, electrocution, waterboarding, use of prolonged stress positions, sexual violence [and] systematic denial of medical care".

 

It said prisoners have been deprived of food, water and clothing, operated on without anaesthetic, and subjected to humiliation by "being made to act like animals or being urinated on".   - (ANA) -

 

AB/ANA/08 December 2025 - - -