Awarta, Beit Furik, Burin (Yitzhar), Huwwara, Za’tara (Tapuah), Mon 7.4.08, Morning
Translation: Rachel B.
Summer is at the door. No special events, nothing terribly disturbing. There is only one detainee in the holding pen in Huwwara who is about to be taken for incarceration. There is a pharmaceutical salesman here who has no permit to enter Nablus in his car because he is on the Security Services watch list (He can go in on foot. Why? Because…).
A group of 4th grade school children are on a trip from Beit Furik to Nablus and for a moment the soldier holds them up because they have no ID cards. The occupation continues as usual, with all the limitations on free movement, sudden impromptu checkpoints replacing those that had officially been removed, etc.
Marda: 7:05 AM
The main gate is open.
Zeita Je'Ma'en: A cement block barrier blocking cars' entrance to the village is alive and well.
Za'tara (Tapu'ach Settlement Junction): 7:15 AM
There is a long line of cars approaching from Nablus.
Three positions are open and the cars are checked through without much delay, generally at about 40 seconds per car. But the Reserve Duty soldiers on hand are new and are still learning how to do their work efficiently. Occasionally there are unnecessary delays.
This is how it is: every 3 weeks the Palestinians have to go through a new wave of "basic training" for the soldiers on duty, so today they will take another quarter of an hour to get to their destinations.
Moriyah counts the number of cars in line – about 40. The Checkpoint Commander approaches us when she returns and asks her not to go to that spot again because it is dangerous. There are also Border Police on duty. The pleasant soldier who is conducting the checks is appreciated by those being checked – he lets them through quickly and declares: "I do not harass them; I try to process them through as fast as possible since they have to get to their jobs."
Beita: 8:05 AM
At the entrance to the village there is a military Jeep {with soldiers} checking cars entering the village at random. They stop a minibus transporting school teachers. "Regular procedures" which may make the teachers late for school and disrupt the school schedule, but "so what?"
Bourin Junction (Yitzhar Settlement) 8:15 AM
There is no checkpoint.
Beit Furik: 8:20 AM
Pedestrians and cars are passing through the checkpoint without any delays.
8:30 AM: A school bus with students on their annual school trip arrives. The driver and three adult escorts get off the bus to talk to the soldiers. The soldiers go into the bus to take a peek. The delay is brief. The soldier tells the driver he will have a problem permitting the bus to go through because the children have no ID cards. Moriyah points out to the soldiers that these are children in 4th and 5th grade. The soldier reconsiders and decides to exercise his reasonable judgment and not succumb to the daily message of fear {about possible terrorism} and allows the bus to go through. "Have a pleasant trip"?
Ou'arta: 8:40 AM
There are 8 trucks in line from the direction of Nablus. They pass through with no delays. A pharmaceutical salesman from the Nassal Company who supplies pharmacies and hospitals in Nablus is not permitted to go into town with the company car. He says that he passes through here every day without a specific permit and that today they won't let him through. We called the Humanitarian Center and asked them to request that they let him go through. Later on we met Tarek from the District Coordination Office who told us that this man has no permit to enter Nablus. At the Humanitarian Center they report the same thing: the man is on the Security Services watch list and will not be able to enter Nablus in the car. We gave him the information about the phone conversation and suggested that he try to get his name removed form the watch list.
9:05 AM:
People are passing through quickly and there is almost no line. There is a detainee in the holding pen. The Checkpoint Commander watches over him and refuses to let us speak to him. At the Army Headquarters they are checking into it and later inform the commander that the man is on the "Wanted List" and will apparently be transferred to military custody. The commander promises to take care of what he may need. Rudi from the District Coordination Office who was on site, checked on the situation and said the detainee is being properly taken care of and refused to give us identifying information.
Unfortunately, we could only hope (probably a false hope) that they will let the detainee call his family and inform them of his arrest. The pharmaceutical salesman is trying his luck at the Huwwara checkpoint. The soldier gets mad at him and chides him that he tries to get through every day, as does the Military Police officer who tries to help and checks his ID card again, and tells him the same thing. If he wishes to cross on foot through the turnstiles he can do so with the medicines carried on his back – no problem. If so -what is the security risk here? The God of the Occupation knows…
The only way to fight against the bureaucracy and it irrationality is through the Supreme Court, and even this option may soon vanish.
Yitzhar: 10:00 AM
There is a military Jeep here – an impromptu checkpoint, carrying cursory checks. We did not stop because we were in a hurry.
In Beita the military Jeep is no longer there.
Za'tara: 10:15 AM
There are 25 cars in line. The soldiers, as we already said, are new. The grinding of the routine of the Occupation.
'Awarta
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Awarta, an internal checkpoint in the heart of the West Bank, is located east of the Hawara checkpoint, at the junction of Roads 555 (which was forbidden for Palestinian traffic in this area) and the entrance road to Nablus. It was one of the four checkpoints that surrounded Nablus until 2009. We used to watch it at Huwwara shifts because it was the only one where goods could be transferred to and from Nablus, using the back-to-back method. It was operated by the army, from 06:00 to 20:00. Until 2009.
Ronit Dahan-RamatiApr-07-2008Awarta: a long line of cars
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Beit Furik checkpoint
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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)
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Burin (Yitzhar)
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Burin (Yitzhar)
This is a Palestinian village in the Nablus governorate, a little south of Nablus, on the main road passing through the West Bank. The settlements: Yitzhar and Har Bracha, settled in locations that surrounded the village, placed fences so it is cut off the main road.
There are around 4000 inhabitants. Most of them are engaged in agriculture and pasture, although many graduates of the two secondary schools continue to study at the university. Academic positions are hardly available, they find work as builderd, or leave for the Gulf countries.
The village lands were appropriated several times for the establishment of Israeli settlements and military bases, and as a result, Burin's land and water resources dwindled. lSince 1982, more than 2,000 dunams of village land have been declared "state land" and then transferred to Har Bracha settlement.
Over the past few years and more so since 2017, the villagers have been terrorized by the residents of Yitzhar and Har Bracha, the Givat Ronen outpost and others. Despite the close proximity of soldiers to an IDF base close to one of the village's schools, residents are suffering from numerous stone-throwing events, vehicle and fire arson, also reported in the press.
In 2023, the prevention of the olive harvest in the village plot was more violent than ever. Soldiers and settlers walked with drawn weapons between the houses of the village and demanded that people stop harvesting in the village itself and in the private plots outside the village. The settlers from Yitzhar and Giv'at Roned raided the olive groves and stole crops. 300 olive trees belonging to the residents of Burin, near Yitzhar, were uprooted. The loss of livelihood from the olives causes long-term economic damage to the farmers' families, bringing them to the point of starvation.
(updated for November 2023)
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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)
.Fathiya AkfaApr-07-2008Huwara: traffic jam on the main road
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Za'tara (Tapuah)
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Za'tara (Tapuah) Za'tara is an internal checkpoint in the heart of the West Bank, at the intersection of Road 60 and Road 505 (Trans-Samaria), east of the Tapuah settlement. This checkpoint is the "border" marked by the IDF between the north and south of the West Bank, in accordance with the policy of separation between the two parts of the West Bank that has been in place since December 2005. At the Za'tara checkpoint, there are separate routes for Israelis and Palestinians. In the route for Israelis, there are no inspections and the route for Palestinians inspects. The queue lengthens and shortens suits. The checkpoint is open 24 hours a day. The checkpoint is partially staffed and the people who pass through it are checked at random.Shoshi AnbarSep-27-2023Za'atra (Tapuah Intersection). Signs
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