Beit Furik AM
Beit Furik , Saturday 26 June 2004 AM Observers: Victoria, Amalia (reporting) colour = red>There was little traffic in either direction and there were no detained Palestinians ! A woman soldier in charge of the women’s line worked quietly, almost gently. As distinct from Huwwara, no bags were being checked. A military vehicle drove in with a lad of 15 or 16 who was immediately locked into the cement “cage”, a structure no more than one square meter in area , with a metal door. The door was locked from the outside. R., the lieutenant at the checkpoint, and I., the representative of the District Co-ordinating Office (DCO) [ the section of the army that is responsible for handling civilian matters; it usually has representatives at the checkpoints, ostensibly to alleviate the lot o the Palestinians] explained that the boy and a friend had yesterday tried to get through the checkpoint by lying about their ages. After they’d been refused passage, they tried again, this time by going through the fields. Today, the boy had tried again, and apparently got so angry at the roadblock that the soldiers there had “immobilized” him. We arrived after all that was over . There were no visible signs of physical violence on the boy. The soldiers spoke to him quietly. Victoria was allowed to bring him water and to talk to him. She also spoke to local people who said that the boy was mentally disturbed and had behavioral problems.We reported this to the officers who promised to release him after a one- to two-hour detention.There was no yelling at the checkpoint, and the soldiers were businesslike, but they made no special effort to make life easier for the Palestinians going through. Thus, a driver who was having some problems with his car was not allowed to go to a Nablus garage; and other people in the “wrong” age group [i.e. men between 16 and 30 ] — who had problems they wanted to deal with in Nablus, but who had no permits to go into the town — were also not allowed in. A driver told Victoria that his ID card had been confiscated by soldiers in a jeep, inside area A. Locals told about a day during the week when even women had been denied passage; and one spoke of a beating . We were also told of the difficult conditions in the old city of Nablus, during the latest Israeli army incursions when the shooting had been compounded by severe shortages of food and milk. We call the army’s “humanitarian” centre and they promised to try to help with the latter.On our way back, we were detained by soldiers at a military post a few kilometres from the Huwwara checkpoint . The soldiers claimed that they had orders to detain us because we had entered a “forbidden” area – the Beit Furik village. Perhaps somebody from the upper post saw us approaching the taxis which arrive from Beit Furik (our car was parked there). After about 15 minutes, and some phone calls which they and we made, we were released. The soldiers were almost apologetic, and claimed they had never heard of Machsomwatch. Victoria asked why they had pointed a gun at a vehicle with Israeli licence plates on a road along which Israelis are allowed to travel. “Well we thought you were Arabs,” answered the soldier. He thought that was a valid answer.
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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