http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5251751/site/newsweek/Secrets Of Unit 1391
Uncovering an Israeli jail that specializes in nightmares
Newsweek June 28 Issue
By Dan Ephron
<snip> "What Kroizer had discovered and later footnoted in an academic paper (published in the March 2004 issue of Cathedra, circulation: 1,500) was the location of an ultrasecret jail where Israel has held Arabs in total seclusion for years, barred visits by the Red Cross and allegedly tortured inmates. Known as 1391, the facility is used as an interrogation center by a storied unit of Israel's military intelligence, whose members—all Arabic speakers—are trained to wring confessions from the toughest militants. According to Arabs who've been imprisoned in 1391, some of the methods are reminiscent of Abu Ghraib: nudity as a humiliation tactic, compromising photographs, sleep deprivation. In a few cases, at least, interrogators at 1391 appear to have gone beyond Israel's own hair-splitting distinction between torture and what a state commission referred to in 1987 as "moderate physical pressure." <snip>
<snip> "It's the same style as in Abu Ghraib. They take advantage of the fact that Arabs and Muslims are culturally conservative," says Dirani, who spent eight years at 1391 but was never tried for a crime. In what might look to some people like a foreshadowing of Abu Ghraib, Dirani said in an affidavit four years ago that he was interrogated naked for days and photographed repeatedly." <snip>