‘Awarta, Beit Furik, Habla, Huwwara
1)Armed soldiers stand for a long time at the center of Madame village, facing youngsters. It takes us quite a while to understand (perhaps) the reasonfor this: Five young Palestinians have been arrested in all of this, throughout the village.
2) On Wednesday several people were seen close to the plots of land surrounding (settlers' outpost) Havat Gil'ad. Apparently these are lawyers, volunteering with human rights organizations who came to see for themselves how the occupiers intend to take over the claim to these areas belonging to Palestinians, whom the Israeli Occupation forces prevent tilling.
13:45 Habla Checkpoint – few people cross this checkpoint around noon. The gate will open again only in the evening.
14:10 A staff car on road 55 is seen not far from Izbat Tabib, closely followed by an armoured police vehicle.
1420: near Karnei Shomron an army jeep is seen, and from the lone house on an army staff vehicle precedes us on the move.
14:45 Beit Fourik checkpoint – unmanned.
1447 – Awarta Checkpoint – closed as always. No throughway from Awarta to Nablus.
Large banners villifying the agreement that Kerry is trying to create between Israel and Palestine have been hanging on the Huwara DCO fence for over two weeks now. The settlers are allowed to post such material there. The army does not mind.
14:50 – Huwwara Checkpoint – shift change, most likely. Several soldiers disembark from an army vehicle and bring their gear into the checkpoint.
15:02 – 4 army jeeps move in the direction of Bourin village. We follow. Fathiya contacts a friend from this village who joins us. He says that the security official from the settlement Yitzhar regularly comes into the village and parks next to the local school when the children are out for their break: he 'warms up' things. He has also hurled a teargas grenade into the schoolyard. THe Palestinian found a brand new hand grenade (weighing about one pound) in the schoolyard. They summoned the soldiers who exploded it. We were shown a photograph of the grenade, the address of its manufacturer, serial number, all in Hebrew. Now we follow the army vehicles. We are told that once in a while the army enters the village and puts up a checkpost underneath the bridge connecting the villages of Bourin and Madame. We drove in this direction. By the way, as we drove we saw another army vehicle standing at the roadblock between Bourin and Road 60. Near the bridge between Bourin and Madame several army vehicles were parked, soldiers standing next to them. Latetr they continued into Madame, some of them staying in the center of the village, next to the mosque. Earlier we had already seen soldiers disembarking from a jeep and detaining a young man standing next to other people on the road: they shackled and blindfolded him and drove away. In the center of the village stood armed soldiers, ordering storekeepers to shut down their shops. One of the soldiers had a large white knit skullcap on his head. The village children began to gather around. The village elder was on the spot. Perhaps his presence calmed both parties. The soldiers definitely looked ready to fire teargas ammunition at any moment, if needed. From the start Fathiya tried in any way she could to figure out the reason for what we were witnessing.
16:20 – only now we were informed by the DCO that an hour earlier, a Molotov cocktail was hurled from Madame at a bus driving along road 60. In the meantime we were told by the villagers that five youngsters were arrested, among them a 14-year old boy. We have the names of the detainees/.
16:35 – The army leaves the village, Palestinians open up their shops again.
As we traveled road 60 back to Israel we tried in vain to figure out where exactly a Molotov cocktail might be hurled at a bus, when in fact the entire village of Madame is situated beneath the road. It's access road lies under road 60.
16:53 – Jit Junction – a staff car, all its lights flashing, stands by the watchtower at the top of the hill.
17:15 – An army Hummer precedes us near Azzun village.
'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-RamatiJan-6-2026Awarta: Traffic jam on the way to Nablus
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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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Habla
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Habla CP (1393)
The Habla checkpoint (1393) was established on the lands of the residents of Qalqilya, on the short road that
connected it for centuries to the nearby town of Habla. The separation barrier intersects this road twice and cut off the residents of Qalqilya from their lands in the seam zone.(between the fence and the green line).
There is a passage under Road 55 that connects Qalqilya to the sabotage This agricultural barrier is used by the farmers and nursery owners established along Road 55 from the Green Line and on both sides of the kurkar road leading to the checkpoint.
This agricultural checkpoint serves the residents of Arab a-Ramadin al-Janoubi (detached from the West Bank), who pass through it to the West Bank and back to their homes. The opening hours (3 times a day) of this agricultural checkpoint are longer than usual, about an hour (recently shortened to 45 minutes), and are coordinated with the transportation hours of a-Ramadin children studying in the occupied in the West Bank.
Nina SebaAug-18-2025Habla: The gate is in the process of closing
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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)
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Shoshi AnbarMay-18-2025Huwara: The old houses in Area C
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