Camp/Facility/Unit 1391 is an IOF black site prison camp in Northern Israel.
The location is: 32°28’11.93″N 35° 1’20.74″E
The existence of this black site was not uncovered until 2003. A researcher looking into old British buildings in the region found the structure on a 70 year old map, but it was not in any modern map or official Israeli security documentation. After including the location in a footnote of the published research, Israeli military censors reached out to the author, inadvertently confirming its existence. According to an article by The Guardian in 2003 (Facility 1391: Israel's secret prison), "[the facility] has been removed from maps and airbrushed from aerial photographs."
Through extensive research documented in the resources listed below, there is substantial evidence that the facility has been used for torture and indefinite detention of Palestinians, Lebanese, Iraqi's, Syrians, and likely others. A human rights lawyer who worked to expose the black site's existence confirmed to The Guardian that "'Our main conclusion is that it exists to make torture possible - a particular kind of torture that creates progressive states of dread, dependency, debility'". Israel has also never allowed the International Red Cross, or anyone else, to visit the illegal site, which is particularly ironic given Israel's public demonization of the IRC since October 7th, 2023 in particular. According to an article by Reuters, citing a member of the United Nations Committee against Torture, from 2009, "some 600 complaints of alleged ill-treatment or torture were brought between 2001 and 2006, but none had been followed up...". In fact, the committee cited "a ruling by Israel's Supreme Court which had upheld that no investigations could be conducted against activities there." In a response that could equally be taken from 2009 or 2024, Israel said "the committee has preferred the claims of Hamas, a murderous terror organization, and by doing so had misled the world." As one can see, early after Hamas' democratic election, Israel was already trying to create a false narrative that Israel can do no wrong simply because of their fallacious claims that Hamas are nothing but "terrorists". This is a particularly brazen example of Israel's willingness to ignore all logic, seeing that their obligations to operate a prison facility in accordance with International Law have quite literally nothing to do with anyone but Israel itself. Israel continues this playbook today, particularly by insisting that any data published by the Hamas Ministry of Health is fake, despite multiple independent international organizations verifying said data as reliable over many years. It should also be noted that the operation of such a facility in secret is in and of itself a violation of the United Nations Convention Against Torture.
Shortly after the facility became known in 2003, Hamoked: Center for the Defense of the Individual, an Israeli human rights organization, "filed a public petition against the very existence of a secret incarceration facility in Israel, Facility 1391..." and worked for many years to challenge the government over its operations. A report in 2011 by Hamoked in response to the Supreme Court of Israel (HCJ) dismissing the original petition 7 years later, provides some especially pertinent facts and insights:
"The court refused to consider the claims about wrongful interrogation methods practiced in the facility, maintaining that specific and concrete claims should first be placed before the competent authorities."
Hamoked did provide such concrete claims years earlier, and subsequently filed two more petitions "following the authorities' refusal to open criminal investigations over concrete claims of torture in Facility 1391." The HCJ rejected both petitions, but required "the authorities" to investigate the complaints, subsequently to absolve themselves, another tactic that continues until today. "The fact that the complaints were examined by an internal entity, part of the same organization as those allegedly involved in the acts which prompted the complaints, even raises concerns as to the independence of the preliminary examination, especially as its process and findings have not been revealed." "The HCJ also rejected the request to publicize the findings of that examination."
"In international law, the prohibition on torture an inhuman and degrading treatment is absolute. It applies to each and every person, no matter who they are, at all times. The prohibition is enshrined in a number of treaties and international documents to which Israel is party and in international customary law. In Israeli law, torture amounts to a criminal offense and is in contravention of Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty in that it injures the dignity and physical integrity of a person. Torture cannot be sanctioned, not even through the limitations clause in the Basic Law, because the prohibition on torture is considered jus cogens, namely, a rule from which no deviation is accepted. In a situation of armed conflict or occupation, the absolute prohibition on torture is doubly important, since in a situation of war and chaos, the risk of cruel and unusual conduct on part of individuals increases, and at the same time, more and more individuals - prisoners of war, civilians uninvolved in the hostilities and security detainees - are exposed to harm and abuse."
"It should be noted that upon joining the Convention against Torture, Israel included a reservation which does not allow the UN Committee against Torture to conduct confidential investigations following receipt of information regarding torture in Israel. In addition, Israel refrained from signing the protocol appended to the Convention which allows the committee members to hold inspection in incarceration facilities in Israel and instructs parties to establish an internal-national agency to conduct such inspections."
Israel has claimed that the facility is closed, but this has never been independently verified. On this note, Hamoked continued to monitory activity at the facility and reached out again in 2016 to the military seemingly after suspicions of its continued use.
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