Beit Furik, Huwwara, Za’tara (Tapuah), Tue 15.4.08, Afternoon
Natanya translating.
13.56 At the Shomron checkpoint at the entrance to the occupied territories is a blue police van and a plastic checkpoint forcing cars to slow down so that the police can see the occupants of the car. We do not stop.
The car checkpoint at the entrance to Zeita is still there.
At Za'tara are 10 cars in either direction. The soldiers are having a change of shift. Large Israeli flags above their heads.
14.23 At Huwwara the shed is full of people wanting to leave Nablus and undergoing various forms of harassment. Besides the wait in the unbearable heat they go through the x-ray device, stripping, handing in IDs, answering all kinds of questions, being sent to the x-ray machine and in the end chased away while waiting for their friends.
The soldiers try to drive us away but the commander explains and does not allow them to do so. "Now the briaged commander has also become a leftist" one of the soldiers says in anger.
Drivers have to stop and all get out. The driver goes to the soldiers with the IDs and the others are sent to the x-ray machines. Then the driver alone gets back into the car and goes towards the soldiers. Sometimes the dog trainer decided to make a search and with various sounds calls the dog to do so. This takes some minutes and only after that people can get back into the cars.
A driver who is detained because the soldier says he drove on the apartheid road which is meant mainly for the settlers and the driver says he came there from Huwwara and the soldier is wrong. But the driver is the judge and the driver is punished and detained. One of the soldier shouts in a loud and mocking voice to the men asking them why they are standing and looking at her. This is because one of them did not understand her hand movement. "Yalla Yalle she says to someone trying to gather his belonging "Get the hell out of here." Etc. The DCO representative says she wants to be moved to another position and this is her way of trying to bring this about.
About 15.15 a man is sent to the pit for no reason.
At 15.45 another man is detained. He had tried to pass in the humanitarian line because he is sick….and he looks so… and so he is being punished. They say this is not the first time he has done so and they do not accept the fact that this is not a short illness. A man stops next to us and says that the soldiers have taken from him a car ring with the Palestinian flag on it. He asks if he should insist that this be returned to him but decides not to wait. The soldier says he only looked at the key ring but did not take it.
At 16.20 An hour and 29 minutes after being detained the driver is freed.
At Beit Furik are few people.
18.25 10 cars at the entrance to Beita and border police block the road. It seems that three days ago a dirt barricade was put of here and now they have been told to take it down. One soldier says "Olmert told me to close so I did so and now he says to take it down and I do so. We are sure that this is one of the blockages which will be marked down as "alleviating" the position of the Palestinians.
18.46 2 men in the isolation at Huwwarra.
The soldiers are leading a handcuffed man at the Shomron checkpoint.
Beit Furik checkpoint
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One of the three internal checkpoints that closed on the city of Nablus - Beit Furik to the east, Hawara to the south, Beit Iba to the west. The checkpoint is located at the junction of Roads 557 (an apartheid road that was forbidden for Palestinians), leading to the Itamar and Alon Morea settlements and Road 5487. The checkpoint was established in 2001 for pedestrians and vehicles; The opening hours were short and the transition was slow and very problematic.Allegedly, the checkpoint is intended to monitor the movement to and from Nablus of the residents of Beit Furik and Beit Dajan, being the only opening outside their villages. Since May 2009 the checkpoint is open 24 hours a day, the military presence is limited, vehicles can pass through it without inspections, except for random inspections. (Updated April 2010)
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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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Shoshi AnbarMay-18-2025Huwara: The old houses in Area C
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Za'tara (Tapuah)
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Za'tara (Tapuah) Za'tara is an internal checkpoint in the heart of the West Bank, at the intersection of Road 60 and Road 505 (Trans-Samaria), east of the Tapuah settlement. This checkpoint is the "border" marked by the IDF between the north and south of the West Bank, in accordance with the policy of separation between the two parts of the West Bank that has been in place since December 2005. At the Za'tara checkpoint, there are separate routes for Israelis and Palestinians. In the route for Israelis, there are no inspections and the route for Palestinians inspects. The queue lengthens and shortens suits. The checkpoint is open 24 hours a day. The checkpoint is partially staffed and the people who pass through it are checked at random.
Shoshi AnbarSep-27-2023Za'atra (Tapuah Intersection). Signs
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