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.

 

'Azzun 'Atma
A Palestinian village of about 1,800 residents. The settlement of Sha'arei Tikva was established on its land adjacent to it, and the settlement of Oranit was established on its agricultural lands. By 2013, the separation fence had passed through the village and a checkpoint staffed by the army allowed the residents to cross from side to side. After building a massive wall surrounding the village and some of its agricultural lands, the residents went daily for five years to their lands that remained in the Seam Zone through the Oranit agricultural checkpoint (4). Since 2018 it has only  opened during the olive harvest and the farmers have to pass daily at the Beit Amin / Abu Salman checkpoint (1447), about 3 kilometers north.

From a report from March 24, 2021: "The farmers from Beit Amin and Azon Atma are happy that since February 21 the Oranit checkpoint .is going to be open 3 times a day, The farmers are really developing the place."

Report from July 14, 2024: "Ornit checkpoint is closed . The Beit Amin/Abu Salman agricultural checkpoint is closed (there is no contact with the military to check if it opens rarely), the Ezbat Jaloud checkpoint was opened once a day before the war.

Updated for July 2024

 

Haris

The village has 4,500 people and they have 5,000 dunams of land. The entrance to the village is blocked and opened arbitrarily, without informing the residents.The village has a seasonal checkpoint that blocks the road to the agricultural land and this checkpoint opens once a year! 2,500-3,000 dunams were stolen from the village in order to build the settlements of Revava and Netafim, which are located west of Haris.

The center of the village is Area B and around Area C. The population grows but the occupation does not permit new construction in Area C.

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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Kifl Harith

This is a Palestinian located north-west of the settler-colony town of Ariel, 18 kilometers south of the city of Nablus. It numbers 3, 206 inhabitants, as of 2007. 42% of the village lands lie in Area B, and 58% in Area C. In 1978, some hundreds of dunams of the village’s farmland was sequestered in order to found the settler-colony of Ariel – in total 5,184 dunams from the Palestinian communities of Salfit, Iscaqa, Marda, and Kifl Harith. Dozens of square kilometers were also confiscated for paving road no. 5 as well as road 505 and their buffer zones, and the Israeli electricity company’s power station. Over the years the village has suffered harassment by sometimes-armed settler-colonists, even casualties. In 1968 the army’s rabbinate ruled the maqam site Nabi Yanoun (sanctified grave of the Prophet Yanoun) is in fact the tomb of Joshua, Son of Nun. Another structure in the village, named Nabi Tul Kifl by the Palestinians, has been identified by the Israeli authorities as to the tomb of Caleb, Son of Yefuneh. These sites are located in the heart of the village, near the mosque, and at times of Jewish religious festivities and pilgrimages, the center of the village is illuminated by projectors and thousands of Jews arrive, protected by hundreds of Israeli soldiers. During such a period, a night curfew is imposed on the village and the villagers are forced to stay shut inside their homes.

Yasuf The village numbers 2,500 residents, and in the neighboring village of Iskaka  about 1,500. Yasuf suffers from low  water supply and intermittent flow - although the population has more than doubled since the Oslo Accords, the 12 cubic meters set in 1996,  sometimes even less, are alternated between the two villages, summer and winter .Permits to complete the harvest are only given for a few days, and there are often roadblocks on the way to the groves and the settlers, mostly fr/om Tapuah, try to drive the harvesters away. Since 2006, the settlements have been expanded threefold from their original location, and the harassments are numerous - including vandalism of cars and spraying of hate-inscriptions on the mosque. The settlers from Kfar Tapuach took control of land belonging to the residents and planted their own trees, and the army does not allow the villagers to approach these plots.