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Beit Furik, Huwwara, Tue 2.12.08, Morning

Observers: Nurit W. (took photos) Yael P., Rahel A. (reported)
Dec-02-2008
| Morning

Translation: Hanna K.

We arrived late because of the traffic jams that happened around the Dan region because of a terrorist attack alert.

At the ZaataraTapuah Junction Few cars.
At the parking lot, opposite the approach road to Beita stands a military command-car.

08:35 Beit Furik
Few cars. The traffic is sparse.
At the CP there is a beginning of a refurbishment activity. Three bulldozers are working in the area. One of them lifts the concrete barricades which formed a kind of fence, parallel to the CP. Their use was truly never clear to us, as all the people pass through the covered passage and the turnstiles. Most of the concrete barricades have been removed already. Two volunteers of a church organization for human rights come up to greet us. She is British and he is Swedish. Both are not young anymore. They have been living since three months in one of the villages in the region.
A military jeep stops next to us. A captain in it smiles to us in a friendly way and announces that the activity of the bulldozers will make the passage through the CP quicker. We pass on to the exit junction from Beit Furik to collect information at the coffee kiosk.
It transpires that on the exit lane from Beit Furik three concrete barricades were placed – perhaps those which were removed from the CP to Nablus. By their means it will be easy to block the exit from the village. At the café we are told that the Beit Furik CP will be dismantled and instead a new CPgate at the exit from the village will operate – which will be open every day till nine o'clock in the evening. Nurith asks what will happen if a woman will be about to give birth, and the way from the village will be blocked.

Awarta
 There is a CP for the back-to-back transfer of goods, and bulldozers are also operating. The parking lot there is empty. A crew of officers, amongst which is the building officer of the region, are present on the spot.

Huwwara
An ordinary day. There is no special tension. The soldiers seems to be fresh in the area. The girls too. The DCO man comes up to us for a light conversation. From time to time, when we counted, there were about 20 persons waiting to pass. The passengers of a minibus going to Nablus are made to leave the bus to be checked at the screening machine.
One of those passing through the CP stops for a conversation with us:
Life is shit
Look what goes on here
I left Jenin in order to reach Ramallah. This will take me more than an hour. I must pass through about 10 CPs on the way.
He has three children and makes his living as a real estate broker.
The soldiers are doing their own thing – breakfast and everything connected with it. It doesn't seem that they are making it especially difficult for the Palestinians.
Before we leave a car arrives and in it are two women, members of the well known "blue white" organization.
Their car parks at the parking lot reserved for the army – near what was once the "humanitarian building.
The blue white women hasten to the soldiers carrying green small flags which they districute among the soldiers.

10:00 We leave Huwwara.


At the Za'taraTapuah CP there is hardly any traffic

 

  • Beit Furik checkpoint

    See all reports for this place
    • One of the three internal checkpoints that closed on the city of Nablus - Beit Furik to the east, Hawara to the south, Beit Iba to the west. The checkpoint is located at the junction of Roads 557 (an apartheid road that was forbidden for Palestinians), leading to the Itamar and Alon Morea settlements and Road 5487. The checkpoint was established in 2001 for pedestrians and vehicles; The opening hours were short and the transition was slow and very problematic.
      Allegedly, the checkpoint is intended to monitor the movement to and from Nablus of the residents of Beit Furik and Beit Dajan, being the only opening outside their villages. Since May 2009 the checkpoint is open 24 hours a day, the military presence is limited, vehicles can pass through it without inspections, except for random inspections. (Updated April 2010)
  • Huwwara

    See all reports for this place
    • The Huwwara checkpoint is an internal checkpoint south of the city of Nablus, at the intersection of Roads 60 and 5077 (between the settlements of Bracha and Itamar). This checkpoint was one of the four permanent checkpoints that closed on Nablus (Beit Furik and Awarta checkpoints to the east and the Beit Iba checkpoint to the west). It was a pedestrian-only barrier. As MachsomWatch volunteers, we watched therre  since 2001  two shifts a day -  morning and noon, the thousands of Palestinians leaving Nablus and waiting for hours in queues to reach anywhere else in the West Bank, from the other side of the checkpoint the destination could only be reached by public transport. In early June 2009, as part of the easing of Palestinian traffic in the West Bank, the checkpoint was opened to vehicular traffic. The passage was free, with occasional military presence in the guard tower.  Also, there were vehicle inspections from time to time. Since the massacre on 7.10.2023, the checkpoint has been closed to Palestinians.

      On February 26, 2023, about 400 settlers attacked the town's residents for 5 hours and set fire to property, such as houses and cars. Disturbances occurred in response to a shooting of two Jewish residents of Har Bracha by a Palestinian Terrorist. The soldiers stationed in the town did not prevent the arson and rescued Palestinian families from their homes only after they were set on fire. No one was punished and Finance Minister Smotrich stated that "the State of Israel should wipe out Hawara." Left and center organizations organized solidarity demonstrations and support actions for the residents of Hawara.

      Hawara continued to be in the headlines in all the months that followed: more pogroms by the settlers, attacks by Palestinians and  a massive presence of the army in the town. It amounted to a de facto curfew of commerce and life in the center of the city. On October 5, 2023, MK Zvi established a Sukkah in the center of Hawara and hundreds of settlers backed the army blocked the main road and held prayers in the heart of the town all night and the next day. On Saturday, October 7, 23 The  "Swords of Iron" war began with an attack by Hamas on settlements surrounding Gaza in the face of a poor presence of the IDF. Much criticism has been made of the withdrawal of military forces from the area surrounding Gaza and their placement in the West Bank, and in the Hawara and Samaria region in particular, as a shield for the settlers who were taking over and rioting.

      On November 12, 2023, the first section of the Hawara bypass road intended for Israeli traffic only was opened. In this way, the settlers can bypass the road that goes through the center of Hawara, which is the main artery for traffic from the Nablus area to Ramallah and the south of the West Bank. For the construction of the road, the Civil Administration expropriated 406 dunams of private land belonging to Palestinians from the nearby villages. The settlers are not satisfied with this at the moment, and demand to also travel through Hawara itself in order to demonstrate presence and control.

      (updated November 2023)

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      חווארה: הבתים הישנים בשטח סי
      Shoshi Anbar
      May-18-2025
      Huwara: The old houses in Area C
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