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BEIT FURIK AND HUWWARA, Wednesday 2 June 2004 AM Observer: Michal P. (reporting)colour=red>08:00 — Students of the el-Kuds University were standing at the Beit Furik checkpoint not permitted even to undergo the check of the District Coordinating Office (DCO) [the section of the army that attends to civilian matters; it usually has representatives at the checkpoints ostensibly to alleviate the lot of the Palestinians]. There were orders not to let el-Kuds students through because they are aligned with the Hamas[more radical than the PLO both as regards Moslem fundamentalism and the politics of the Israel-Arab conflict] (it our information that they are simply unwilling to be collaborators with the Israeli army).A young man was detained there in handcuffs because his document was forged, according to the soldier. When told to wait, the soldier said, he had started walking away, was then detained and was now awaiting a check by the General Security Services (GSS) [also known by its Hebrew acronym as the Shabak or Shin Bet, which maintains the list of those deemed suspect from a security point of view]. The man himself told us that he hadn’t tried to escape and had simple been frightened.The soldiers were very unpleasant: violent towards the Palestinians, inhumane and malicious.09:30 — The were five detainees at the Huwwara checkpoint, a very difficult one where the soldiers all conducted themselves in the same manner. Everyone who went through was considered suspect, a liar, and a potential terrorist.10:30 — Held up at Tapuah junction was a long convoy of vehicles coming from the direction of Huwwara. A taxi driver reported that they had been standing for an hour, and pointed to a taxi carrying only women and small children. The soldiers naturally claimed that there was an alert [regarding an imminent terrorist attack]. It was another ordinary and intolerable day of Israeli occupation.
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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Shoshi AnbarMay-18-2025Huwara: The old houses in Area C
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