In Israel, a new report has cast an uncomfortable glare on death in places the public rarely glimpses. A group of Israeli doctors, long involved in monitoring detention conditions, says nearly a hundred Palestinians arrested since the Gaza conflict began in 2023 have died in custody. Their findings, stark and clinical, paint a picture of a system stretched beyond ordinary strain.

What distinguishes the deaths is not their number but their setting. Many occurred far from the front lines, inside military compounds and regulation prison blocks. The organisation speaks of bodies marked by hunger and blunt force, of wounds that raise more questions than official explanations answer. Israeli authorities insist their procedures hold up to scrutiny and that each fatality is duly examined, some attributed to injuries or illnesses predating arrest.

The doctors, who seldom mince words, are unconvinced and want an inquiry no longer to run by those they believe may be implicated. International monitors have voiced similar unease for months. Since the shock of October 2023, detention has swelled into a vast bureaucratic instrument of war. Ceasefires may halt shelling, but they rarely touch what happens behind locked doors. In this conflict, the hidden costs are only just surfacing.