Azzun, Wed 28.11.07, Afternoon
Azzun 15.00
We stopped there as we had been asked to check on the heavy blows inflicted there by the army and the settlers on the local population after the terrorist attack. Tammie made an appointment with Abdullah, a local resident, for a later hour.
16.30 We leave Funduk where most of the shops are closed and the roads almost deserted. There is no curfew but people are scared of the pogroms which had taken place two days ago. At the entrance to the village are army vehicles. We did not see the damage which was inside the village and not on the main road.
At Azzun, the entrance is blocked with cement barriers. Cars wait at the side of the village, so far in vain, for the checkpoint to be opened. The villagers try to push aside the barrier but to no avail.
Tammie and 2 volunteers of the ISM met with Abdullah who could not come to the barrier because he was ill and we could not get to him either. We had no option but to meet with the two volunteers. Eric told us that he had been beaten up with no cause and without any provocation on his part. Only because of a question that he had asked them.
17.30 We left.
'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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