The Invisible Deaths of Palestinians in Israeli Captivity

Through the national conversation, stories of missing Israeli hostages or soldiers dominate the narrative. Even when the deaths of these same hostages come as a result of IDF bombs, the coverage is extensive. In contrast, the stories of thousands of Palestinian hostages in Israeli detention centers rarely break into the mainstream. The media has a structural suppression of Palestinian torture and deaths. This year, 13 Palestinians have already died in Israeli custody, and only one of these deaths has attracted any coverage in corporate media. These media ecosystems have enforced selective empathy to hold up the Zionist narrative.

Ahmed Saeed Tazaz'a, a twenty-year-old from Jenin, died after just three months of Israeli torture, with zero criminal charges. Despite this harsh reality, no U.S. media outlet spent a second on his death. Across Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel proper, detainees have been subjected to torture, neglected from medical care, deprived of sleep, and subject to violence. The Human Rights Watch documented that when confessions of crimes do occur, they occur after detainees are tortured, stripped, and denied adequate care until they confess. Prison camps have been dedicated to abuse and torture as a result of the system of apartheid.

The story of Israeli detention has been mortality on a mass scale. Since October 7th, 2023, at least 59 Palestinians have died as a direct result of Israeli detention. Over the decades, around 300 prisoners have died after being illegally detained. As a 2024 UN Human Rights Commission confirmed, the Israeli government deliberately uses "arbitrary, prolonged, and incommunicado detention," in direct violation of international law. Despite all of this, the investment of mainstream media in documenting this is negligible.

Why does this underreporting occur? In newsrooms that are often funded by Zionist donors, Israeli government statements and briefings receive acceptance, while Palestinian voices are dismissed as unreliable. Beyond this, journalists face severe restrictions in documenting detention facilities, and testimony from detainees is suppressed. Even in the case of Walid Ahmad, a 17-year-old who died in custody does slip into coverage, follow-up, and accountability soon vanish. Compare this to the sustained coverage of Israeli captives held by Hamas; every incident, story, and death is placed on the front page and discussed for months. That discrepancy is intentional and a direct result of a system of oppression.

This silence has consequences; when there is no public pressure on a genocide, there is no accountability. The U.S. political class, often an arm of Zionist donors, rarely faces questions from the public about Israel's practices in its prisons because the stories remain underground. When a Palestinian dies in custody, it is quietly absorbed in human rights reports or social media, but rarely enters the mainstream. Even when autopsy findings are uncovered that reveal malnutrition, disorders, untreated disease, and muscle wasting, these stories are never known to the general public.

U.S. media institutions, like much of the political structure, are entrenched in colonial frameworks. Through Zionist funding and justification for expansion, stories that align with the narratives from Washington are amplified. When Palestinian suffering is portrayed as unfortunate collateral damage, the people are appeased, and the framework of genocide isn't challenged. Under Israeli narratives of "self-defense," the media can control the moral calculus of the public. Thus, the act of reporting (or not reporting) itself is controlling our politics. Writing about Palestinian deaths challenges the structure of invisibility that controls our government. The stories of Palestinians who die in Israeli custody aren't merely statistical; rather, they are a direct result of systemic erasure. To push back on this narrative in our media is to insist that every death, regardless of nationality, demands justice.