Azzun, Beit Iba, Wed 24.10.07, Morning
Azzun
7.05 The main entrance to Azzun is open. Crossroads of Jit empty. The road to Deir Sharaf is appalling.
Beit Iba
No limitations of movement.
7.30
At least 15 students at the entrance. Men are checked one by one and the women randomly. At the exit few people pass and the checking is quick, quiet and polite. Inside the cement blocks a soldier checked parcels and bags on the table. This is before IDs are checked. The car lane is fairly empty probably as the drivers tell us because the checkpoint at El Bidan is not working. The soldiers check the lanes separately.
8.30
While we are there pressure builds up at the entrance to Nablus but the checking is swift (2-4 minutes to a car besides the checking of the IDs).
A personal note. It is amazing to see the building after not having been there for some months. The place is fairly clean but the dust from the quarry invades ones lungs and makes it difficult to breathe and one wonders how something that was supposed to be temporary has become permanent. What great brain decided that this public hazard which is so bad for the Palestinians and for the soldiers will be added to the menu of the checkpoint.
'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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