Beit Furik
BEIT FURIK, Saturday 20 November 2004 AMObservers: Nina M. reporting) and a guest, Ewa K. (a journalist from the USA) Beit Furik checkpoint is still an “exemplary” one. Everything is highly orderly. The group of reservists there was very polite. There was an unusually long line of men, most of them students (it was the first working day after the Eid el Fitr holiday which closes the month-long fast of Ramadan) waiting to go through after being checked. A student from the open university of El-Quds came with a permit which had expired three days ago, saying that he wanted to go to the District Coordinating Office (DCO) in Huwwara [ the DCO is the army section that handles civilian matters; it generally has representatives at the checkpoints ostensibly to alleviate the lot of the Palestinians]. He was politely refused with the explanation that the DCO is closed on Saturdays, and so there was no justification for his trip to Nablus. In the opinion of the soldier, so he confided to me, “He’s just got things to in the city”. We talked to Beit Furik people about the fate of Hirbet Tana. This is a hamlet comprising agricultural land, with good water sources, cultivated by 56 families. It has a small school with three classes, and a mosque. About two months ago the Israel army declared it a closed military area. The hamlet’s families got orders to vacate their homes. It is not yet clear if the Israel Government is confiscating this land to build an eastern “separation wall” or in order to transfer it to settlers, or both. The families have petitioned the Israel High Court. We were told that whenever they try to graze their sheep there, Israeli soldiers always chase them away. The army has blocked the only road that leads to the hamlet.
Huwwara
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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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Ronit Dahan-RamatiAug-24-2026Huwara: The school on the outskirts of town and an outpost hidden among the trees
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