THE number of Palestinians dying in Israeli custody surged to nearly 100 people since the start of the war in Gaza, according to a damning new report published Monday by a human rights group.

This came as outrage broke out over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement that his far-right government will oversee an inquiry into the events of October 7 2023.

The report by Physicians for Human Rights–Israel (PHRI), exposes how systematic violence and denial of medical care at prisons and detention centres contributed to many of the deaths it examined.

Of the 98 prisoner deaths PHRI documented since the October 7 attack by Hamas and its allies, 27 occurred in 2023, 50 in 2024 and 21 this year, the most recent on November 2. 

PHRI says the actual death toll over this timeframe is “likely significantly higher,” noting that Israel has refused to provide information about hundreds of Palestinians detained during the war.

Fewer than 30 Palestinians died in Israeli custody in the 10 years preceding the war, PHRI says. But since the war, the prison population more than doubled to 11,000 as people were rounded up, mainly from Gaza and the West Bank. 

The number of prisoners dying grew at an even faster rate over that period, PHRI data shows.

“The alarming rate at which people are killed in Israeli custody reveals a system that has lost all moral and professional restraint,” said Naji Abbas, a director at PHRI.

Last year, the head of Israel’s prison system, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, boasted that he had degraded prison conditions to the legal minimum.

Israel’s prison service said it operates in accordance with the law. It declined to comment on the death count.

Meanwhile, in Israel, after repeated delays, Israel’s government has agreed to launch an investigation into the government failures that led to the Hamas-led attack on October 7 2023.

Prime Minister Netanyahu will oversee the make-up of the team governing the inquiry, in effect putting him in charge of the probe. 

But Israel’s opposition leader, Yair Lapid, called the decision insulting to the victims of October 7 and to the hundreds of soldiers who have died in the war.

“The government is doing everything it can to run from the truth and evade responsibility,” Mr Lapid said.

The Movement for Quality Government in Israel said the government is “establishing a commission that will investigate itself. 

“This is not an investigative commission, this is a cover-up commission.”