Azzun, Beit Iba, Jit, Mon 26.11.07, Afternoon
15.00 On our way to Beit Iba
On road 60, there was a car which was laying spiked barriers. Palestinian cars passed freely. We thought that this was to stop the settlers on their way to Chomesh. We took the recommendation of Naomi from the previous week and went up to the sentry box on the "old" road to Shave Shomron. At the side stood an ambulance and about 20 settlers and also two cars stood in front of the closed checkpoint. Today there was a ceremony in memory of Ido Zoldan who was murdered a week ago.
15.15
We stopped in the parking lot of the carpentry shop where there was an ambulance and people gathered around. They were on their way to Tulkarm but students had been detained who had tried to slip through. They had already been there for more than an hour. We got closer to the checkpoint and saw 13 detainees. There were many people at the two turnstiles and those who manage to get through pass us cursing.
One of the soldiers who was checking cars passing through from Nablus saw us. He came up to Elishave and asked," Nu did you see what happened yesterday. A terrorist with a detonator was caught. What do you say about that?" But he was not interested in getting a reply. To him the reply was obvious. To make things more difficult and to show them what we can do. He asked the driver of a car for his ID, with intentional and provocative slowness he opens and checks it and returns it to the driver in a sort of a dance which is obviously meant for us.
15.30
The DCO representative, Sergeant T. explains to us that the detainees had tried to slip through and their IDs had been taken for checking. He promised that that they would be freed once their IDs had been examined. In the meantime there are now18 detainees and Elisheva phones the centre.
At 15.50 they are all freed.
16.00
The commander asks us to move off but we stand in place and explain that we are in a place which allows us to see what is happening. He says that we are bothering them and had we had not heard what had happened the previous day. The whole time the soldiers throw this at us. The pressure on the turnstiles increases and the commander leaves us and tried to deal with the problem.
Those entering are not checked and they try to make their way through. Some jump over the cement blocks.
A man with a small boy tries to pass at the side but the soldier calls him and sends him to the end of the line. The DCO representative intervenes and ask the soldier to check his ID. The Palestinian says that he is on his way back from hospital where his wife is and that he had forgotten his ID. He only has copies. The soldier says he cannot let him pass and in the end the man goes back to the hospital to bring his ID.
Palestinians tell us that they cannot go home to Sebastia, Nisaf Jubaal and Iginisiniyat because the road is blocked. The centre did not know of this and did not know till what time this would be so. (Because of the ceremony at Chomesh).
16.30 Jit.
A police checkpoint on the road west.
Azzun…no soldiers.
Al Funduq. All the shops are closed. Police jeeps and cars of the border police and another army vehicle along the road and this we also see at the crossroads of Ariel.
'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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Beit Iba
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A perimeter checkpoint west of the city of Nablus. Operated from 2001 to 2009 as one of the four permanent checkpoints closing on Nablus: Beit Furik and Awarta to the east and Hawara to the south. A pedestrian-only checkpoint, where MachsomWatch volunteers were present daily for several hours in the morning and afternoon to document the thousands of Palestinians waiting for hours in long queues with no shelter in the heat or rain, to leave the district city for anywhere else in the West Bank. From March 2009, as part of the easing of the Palestinian movement in the West Bank, it was abolished, without a trace, and without any adverse change in the security situation.
Jun-4-2014Beit-Iba checkpoint 22.04.04
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Jit Junction
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The checkpoint is located on Route 60 near at the junction with Route 55, near the village of Jit. There was a checkpoint for vehicles passing between the north and south of the West Bank, which was abolished towards 2010. Since then, surprise checkpoints have been set up there from time to time with a police or Border Police vehicle, and vehicles and their passengers are inspected.
Anat PolakJul-17-2025Yitzhar Road, Jit Junction: traffic jam
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