Azzun, Beit Iba, Jit, Mon 7.4.08, Afternoon
Beit Iba. Reserve soldiers are manning the checkpoint. Today the small number of people characterized the crossing of the checkpoint. The reason is not clear.
15:30 – 8 vehicles at the entrance to Nablus, and also at the exit. On the path between the lines there is a dog trainer with a dog, and next to her a number of Military Policemen. A donkey is pulling a small wagon at the entrance to Nablus, and on it a number of baskets. The dog trainer brings over the dog onto the wagon. We stood on the southern side of the checkpoint, from which it is possible to look both at the checkpoint exit for pedestrians and also at the vehicles leaving Nablus. Very quickly, the checkpoint commander approached us and asked us to go over to the cement blocks. We didn't argue with him since, in any case, we had already got a good picture of what was going on. In the humanitarian line were about 50 people going through relatively quickly. In the line for the turnstiles, a smaller number than usual of people, already well-accustomed to the procedure of inspection. Bags, documents, taking off of belts, turning around, sometimes taking off shoes. Everyone leaves the turnstiles with their belts in their hands.
16:15 – J'it Junction is open.
16:25 – Next to the Rose House there is a number of youths playing soccer. The "Shvut Ami" has disappeared, but there is a poster "Continuing to Build the Land of Israel" still on the side of the hill. Also the wall and the blocks of sand at Azzun are still there.
'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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