Huwwara, Beit Furik PM
HUWWARA, BEIT FURIK, Monday 16 August 2004 PM Observers: Riva B. , Rivka A., Sivan Ts., Karen R., Ronni N., Maya K.(reporting) 16:20 to 17:0 — Huwwara It was all very strange, completely quiet: there were just a few merchants in the parking area; the southern checkpoint wasn’t working at all; all the soldiers were at the northern checkpoint , with nothing to do there either. Apart from three detainees – who were joined later by another two—there were no Palestinians there at all. Instead, they were standing between 100 and 200 metres further to the north and we were forbidden to go up to them. It was difficult for us to see how many they were or what was going on there. [Nablus was under closure at the time.]One of the detainees said that the two others had been there since six in the morning and they were all hungry [detainees are, typically, men aged between 16 and 30 who do not have passage permits. Their ID details are relayed by the checkpoint soldiers to the General Security Services (GSS – aka the Shabak or the Shin Bet, the Hebrew acronym) which cross-checks them against a central list of security suspects and then relays the results back to the checkpoint; this process is cumbersome and can be further lengthened if the soldiers wait to accumulate a batch of ID cards before relaying them to the GSS, or if they are similarly tardy about handing back the ID cards at the end of the process, before they release the detainees. Meanwhile the detained Palestinians are virtually held prisoner at the checkpoints since the soldiers hold their IDs until GSS clearance comes through]. The checkpoint commander, S., laughed and said they’d been there only quarter-of-an-hour. The third man , he said, had been there two hours and was being detained pending the arrival of either the GSS or the police, who would be taking him away – all in accordance with “procedures”, he added. All three had been bound for Nablus. When we got here, we were interviewed and filmed by some French television station which asked us some quite tough questions about the security situation – for example the problems raised by ensuring security for Israelis vis-à-vis the harm we were doing to the Palestinians.17:00 to 17:45 — Beit Furik The checkpoint was quite empty: nobody arrived and nobody left. We were greeted on arrival by a group of cheerful soldiers (in Beit Furik, of all places!) There five detainees who’d been there four to five hours (and the soldiers confirmed that this was so). They hadn’t even attempted to go through the checkpoint, but had been caught trying to evade it by slipping through the hills. Now they were being detained in punishment. But that’s not legal, we said; too bad, we were told in reply, orders from above, the battalion’s commanding officer. The detainees were all from Beit Furik or Beit Dajan, but according to the soldiers they would all be released to go in the Nablus direction, not towards their home villages! We tried to help one of them who said he had to get to Jordan next day for some family event. He’d been caught going from Salim to Beit Dajan. B., at the District Co-ordinating Office (DCO), said there was nothing to be done about it and it wasn’t a humanitarian case [ the DCO is the army section that handles civilian matters; it usually has representatives at the checkpoints, ostensibly to alleviate the lot of the Palestinians]. S., at the army’s “humanitarian” hotline, wrote down all the details of our complaint and said he’d try and clarify the matter with the DCO. All the detainees were released as we left—and sent off in the direction of Nablus!!On the way home, we came across a small, unannounced road-block at the Jit junction and another at the Funduq junction.
Huwwara
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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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Ronit Dahan-RamatiAug-24-2026Huwara: The school on the outskirts of town and an outpost hidden among the trees
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