Beit Furik, Huwwara, Za’tara (Tapuah), Tue 9.10.07, Morning
Translation: Rachel B.
It seems like what we observed today is a common phenomenon in the mornings during Ramadan (or maybe this is a result of despair) – the traffic of local residents going from one place to another is very light at all the checkpoints.
All the way to the Zaatara/Tapu'ach Junction there are no delays at any of the entrances to the villages.
Zaatara/Tapu'ach Junction
There is one car being checked on the approach from the west. From the direction of Nablus there are 12 cars in line but none are detained and the traffic is flowing.
Huwwara
Other than butcher shops and the grocery stores, everything is still closed at 7:50 AM, apparently because daily activity starts later.
Yitzhar Junction
The checkpoints are not staffed either on the road to Huwwara and Beit Fureik, or on the way back.
Beit Fureik Junction: 8:00 AM
When we arrive the checkpoint is empty and there are no cars from either direction, neither coming in nor going out of Nablus.
In the soldiers' station there is one soldier, wearing a black kippah, who is praying. A car arrives from Beit Fureik and immediately one of the soldiers signals the driver to come up to have the documents checked and the car goes through. This is how things went the whole time we were here.
Once in a while a car or van drove up, the passengers, men and women on their way to Nablus, got out, got checked and proceeded quickly on their way.
A resident of Beit Fureik arrives. He is married to a woman from the village and holds a Jordanian passport and a note that declares that he has applied for an ID card as part of "Family Reunification." (To the best of our knowledge, he should expect to wait a long time for the ID card…)
He is detained, according to the soldiers on suspicion of holding a fake passport, because details in it are handwritten. The checkpoint commander calls and requests assistance with verifying the validity of the passport. The soldier who had been praying comes forward, explaining that he is from the Military Police, and states that the passport is OK and that there were periods in the past when details were written in by hand. The passport is returned to its owner, the whole process having taken about 20 minutes. The man continues on his way to Nablus.
8:45 AM
The checkpoint is filling up with about 35 people waiting in line. We check the time – it took 7 minutes to process all of them through the checkpoint. A number of women come out from Nablus with large, heavy packages balanced on their heads. The soldiers don't check them and let them go through.
Altogether everything is going along smoothly and calmly, certainly relative to what happened yesterday.
Huwwara Checkpoint: 9:10 AM
Flowing traffic of residents going into Nablus in the morning and only a few people heading out of Nablus.
There are no cars either entering or exiting Nablus. It appears to us from a distance that the soldiers are playfully harassing one of the porters, not clear to us if in a friendly way to harass him.
9:20 AM
There are 4 cars at the entrance, a soldier arrives at the checkpoint and they are free to go through. There are 10 residents waiting at the exit. They go through the usual examination which, for a change, is not done in a rude way. Usually they are not required to take off their belts, just to empty their pockets. People stop next to us and say "How long {will we have to endure this}?"
An elderly man stops next to us and asks us to get him a certain MachsomWatch sticker, maybe it would help him pass through the checkpoint without any problems.
9:30 AM
There is no one waiting to exit from Nablus. To the side of the turnstiles and checkpoint, a man passes by supporting an elderly woman with her eye bandaged up.
9:40 AM
A few people are waiting at the checkpoint.
A car with an Israeli license plate and a symbol of the European Union tries to enter into Nablus. The driver has an entry permit but the car does not. He turns around and goes back.
Following him, another car with an Israeli license plate approaches. According to the driver they always pass through without any problem. In the car there is an activist from a German human rights organization. The soldiers check their papers every which way – meaning the documents for both the car and the passengers. The car has an entry permit. The soldiers check the vehicle – they open the back door, move things around, etc. When they are done the German yells at them: ""You made a mess of these things, now put them back in order! I come from a civilized country and you live in a civilized country too." The soldiers are embarrassed and they put things back in order.
Close to 10:00 AM we left, as there was no dramatic change in the pattern of traffic.
On the way back, at the Zaatara/Tapu'ach Junction there is only one car from the direction of Nablus and 2 cars coming form the west.
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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Fathiya AkfaOct-09-2007Huwara: traffic jam on the main road
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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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