'Azzun
First hand testimony of a family at Azzun: Yesterday at two o’clock at night we heard loud screams and intense knocks on the door of the house.
The mother of the family put a Hijab on herself and went to open the door. Ten soldiers entered the house and asked where the children were.
The father of the family said that the children were sleeping. Asked not to disturg them. Three of the children woke up and remained in their room.
According to them very many soldiers entered the village and spread out among the houses. They knocked on all the doors.
The soldiers didn’t damage the house, didn’t turn things over, didn’t break and scatter and all the other actions known from other places. It was just the mud that was on their shoes which dirtied the house and marked the fact that they had been there and of course the knowledge that your house is penetrable and open to the caprices of the army.
Their claim is that the children throw stones in the direction of the main road.
When the children came back from school I asked them whether they had talked about this at class or among themselves during the break, and how they felt.
They all claimed that they weren’t afraid of the soldiers. They hadn’t talked about it as it was no issue. It is something that happens regularly and is part of the routine.
The father of the family couldn’t sleep the whole night and was afraid that the trembling he had recovered from lately would return.
At the entrance to Azzun there was a military car and soldiers were performing checks.
'Azzun
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Azoun (updated February 2019)
A Palestinian town situated in Area B (under civil Palestinian control and Israeli security control),
on road 5 between Nablus and Qalqiliya, east of Nabi Elias village. The inhabitants are allowed to construct and improve infrastructures. The Separation Fence has confiscated lands belonging to the town's people. In 2018 olive tree groves owned by one of its inhabitants were confiscated for the sake of paving a road to bypass Nabi Elias. Azoun population numbers 13,000, its economic state dire. Its infrastructures are poor, neglect and poverty rampant. In the meantime, the town council has completed paving an internal road for the inhabitants' welfare.
Because of its proximity to the Jewish settler-colony of Karnei Shomron and its outposts, the town suffers the intense presence of the Israeli army, especially at nighttime: soldiers enter homes, arrest suspects, trash the house and sometimes ruin it, as they do in numerous places in the West Bank. At times a checkpoint closes the entrance to the town, so no one can come in or get out.
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