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Awarta, Beit Furik, Huwwara, Za’tara (Tapuah), Mon 18.2.08, Afternoon

Observers: Macky S. Noah P.
Feb-18-2008
| Afternoon

Natanya translating.

Opposite Ariel the work on the road is continuing. There are no guards to be seen at the hitching post and there are people there. At Marda the western gate is closed with curled barbed wire and the east is open. At Zeita the road is still blocked. At Zaatra there are 4 cars and the checking is swift and efficient. We did not stop.
 

13.50 Beit Furik.
A cold wind and heavy clouds. We spoke to the coffee seller at the stop car park where he has made a stand out of nylon coverings so as to protect himself and others from the cold wind and he is worried that the soldiers will make him take it down.   People say that today the checkpoint opened earlier at about 4.30. At the checkpoint itself is one car. The soldiers are indifferent to our presence but the commander asks us politely to stand further away behind the white line. From there we can see about 6 cars waiting to leave Nablus. But for some reason neither cars nor pedestrians are passed through. People entering Nablus are told to come in one by one or at least to take off their coats and turn around and only then to go up to the army police checking area.
14.10 Pedestrians start to go through and a woman complains bitterly that she had waited for two hours. A young couple, the woman pregnant, say they have waited an hour.
At 14.20 cars start to go through and we are told that the change in shift caused the delay. We phoned the centre and complained to Gali who said that when the shift changes the checkpoint is closed for an hour to an hour and a half. The car at the entrance is still waiting. We asked the commander about the delay and he said cars were coming through according to turn and because there had been a long line from Nablus he had given them preference. But he let the car which had already been waiting for 40 minutes go through. A man came though asking if this is how it would also be and saying we should pressure the prime minister to make peace.
 

14.20  Awarta. 12 trucks waiting at the entrance but the passage was fast and efficient.
 

Hawwara.
At the parking lot a man asked what was happening today as if the " usual" was not sufficiently humiliating and annoying.  The commander, a second lieutenant met us at the entrance to Nablus where he was standing with 5 people. Next to the turnstiles was an iron checkpoint and a soldier checking those entering Nablus. He is pleasant and says he has missed us but asks us not to photograph today.  The soldiers are fixing a tarpaulin at the side of one of the fences probably to protect themselves from the rain but the wind prevents them from doing this. The commander says that there are detainees who are waiting for the blue police and otherwise things are quiet.

Two men come up to us, one of whom speaks good Hebrew and is translating for the other. Yusef from Hawarra. His house and that of his brother which is the biggest in the village stands on the main road. On the night between Sunday and Monday soldiers came into the house breaking the furniture and mixing oil with the flour, broke windows and damaged their car and went beserk. They would not speak to the people.  We passed on the complain to Yesh Din and made a contact between Yusef and Azmi who is the investigator of Yesh Din.

There is a dog trainer who is not checking and is playing with the dog who has his mouth covered.  Some minutes later she gets to work. 

The young men say they wait two hours in line but the fast line with R. from the DCO passes quickly.

A regimental policeman asks us where we are from and when we say machomwatch he says why. This hurts me because it shows that there are people who think that all our work here and everything that we do is meaningless. We tried to explain that is about about basic human rights and not about the behavior of the soldiers themselves but it turns out that he believes that everything belongs to us so there was no point in going on.

Two men sign to us to come to them next to the humanitarian line and R. goes up and speak to them and they leave . He tells us that they had been waiting for the blue police who had not come and therefore he had freed them. He says that there is segregation and many alerts.
 

Za'tara.
6 cars. Tomer is there and send them through and from the west only three. No delays. The soldier are polite to us today and not hostile but there is a heavy feeling because of the severity of the past days.

.


 

  • 'Awarta

    See all reports for this place
    • 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.
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  • 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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  • 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.  
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