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Palestine News Network

By Alessandra Bajec

20 June -- The Treatment and Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Torture (TRC) strives to alleviate the traumatic physical and psychological effects of torture and politically motivated violence while giving victims a place to go and discuss their problems ... The family examined is made up of eight members consisting of the father, Majed Arar, his wife, three girls and three boys –aged between 2 and 19 -- from Qurawa Ban Izet, a village near Ramallah. In 2005, their house was demolished by Israeli bulldozers. The family had invested all their money into this brand-new property and suddenly they watched the destruction of their home taking place. At that time, the family was giving refuge to a group of people who were ‘wanted’ by the Israeli forces. The troops ordered the large family out and proceeded to then demolish the house, two of the people hiding away remained inside and died during the demolition. The family was left outside the house, and managed to find -from one of their relatives- a temporary lodging in a small garage. On the same day, the Israeli military took the father and put him in jail. It needs to be mentioned that the father was not a militant, instead a simple man working in the building industry, only his two friends who had taken refuge in his house were politically involved. On the whole, the family went through a large-scale trauma: they were thrown out of their house and humiliated, their house was bombed, the father was taken away, they witnessed the death of two men under rubble. Following his arrest, Majed Arar was subjected to different forms of torture: humiliation, verbal abuse, beatings, sleep and food deprivation, enduring painful positions, having hot and cold air thrown at him, being forced to stay naked, suffering inhumane treatment in general.