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Burin: Every day settlers enter the village accompanied by soldiers, threaten and attack the locals

Observers: Ronit Dahan-Ramati, Fathiya Akefa (reporting)
Jul-02-2025
| Afternoon

13:00 Habla Checkpoint opened on time.

Funduk Preparations for a road to bypass Funduk on its eastern side. Along the road and crowding at entrance to Funduk – Israeli flags.

13:40 Sara Checkpoint Checkpoint open, vehicles nearly reaching Nablus because of the meticulous and slow inspections of the soldiers.

50 meters after passing Havat Gil’ad colony on the left side of Yitzhar Road, the area all the way to the western entrance of the Palestinian village of Madama and the olive trees belonging to Madama have all been incinerated by the colonists. We were told were burnt on Tuesday, July 1st.

14:00 Huwara Most of the shops are closed except for garages and a few grocery stores. The main street is empty and poor. Same in Beita.

14:15 Awarta The checkpoint here crowded with waiting lines of vehicles on both sides, nearly reaching Awarta village and in the opposite direction, almost to Nablus, in the searing heat.

Beit Furik Checkpoint This checkpoint, too, crowded with cars coming from Nablus.

We continued north on the Alon More colony road. On the right side of the road we saw Israeli tractors uprooting olive trees from Beit Furik land as well as the nearby village of Beit Dajan, trees that were burnt before being uprooted. The tractors went into the area and flattened the ground. They were accompanied by three police vans.

Burin The settlers enter the village daily now, accompanied by soldiers, attack people and houses as a matter of course. On Tuesday, July 1st, army-clad settlers from Yitzhar entered the home of Umm Ayman, situated in the southern end of Bureen. They attacked the house inhabitants with clubs, and going out they dug a deep pit on the road near the entrance to the house so the people could not exit it. At the same time, they placed a small caravan not far from Umm Ayman’s house and settled in.

Three days ago, on Sunday, June 29th, settlers from Yitzhar incinerated 150 dunams of wheat opposite the entrance to Bureen on the eastern side of Huwara-Nablus Road. The area that was burnt belongs to some inhabitants, part residents of Huwara, others from Burin. The area is not far from the Nablus DCO, and was entirely burnt.

A week before it was burnt, the owners asked the DCO for permission to harvest the crop. They were told to wait another week.

Our friend Doha’s brother-in-law had his 16 dunams burnt. He owes money and was waiting for the day he could repay his debts from the money made with this crop.

On Monday, June 30th, a young Palestinian was driving his car on his way to Nablus through the Al Murab’a Checkpoint between Burin and Kafr Til. Soldiers at the checkpoint ordered out of the vehicle, shackled his feet and hands, blindfolded him and threw him behind the concrete sab for over 3 hours. Then he was ordered to board a military vehicle without taking off his foot shackles and he had to hop his way to the vehicle. Doha saw this with her own eyes. She went to Nablus and coming back she still saw him shackled, at the same place. She saw him get on the military vehicle and no one had the courage to photograph this.

 

 

Location Description

  • 'Awarta

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    • Awarta, an internal checkpoint in the heart of the West Bank, is located east of the Hawara checkpoint, at the junction of Roads 555 (which was forbidden for Palestinian traffic in this area) and the entrance road to Nablus. It was one of the four checkpoints that surrounded Nablus until 2009. We used to watch it at Huwwara shifts because it was the only one where goods could be transferred to and from Nablus, using the back-to-back method. It was operated by the army, from 06:00 to 20:00. Until 2009.
      מחסום עוורתא: מכוניות ממתינות לכיוון שכם
      Ronit Dahan-Ramati
      Jul-2-2025
      Awarta checkpoint: Cars waiting towards Nablus
  • 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)
  • Burin (Yitzhar)

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    • Burin (Yitzhar)

      This is a Palestinian village in the Nablus governorate, a little south of Nablus, on the main road passing through the West Bank. The settlements: Yitzhar and Har Bracha, settled in locations that surrounded the village, placed fences so it is cut off the main road.

      There are around 4000 inhabitants. Most of them are engaged in agriculture and pasture, although many graduates of the two secondary schools continue to study at the university. Academic positions are hardly available, they find work as builderd, or leave for the Gulf countries.

      The village lands were appropriated several times for the establishment of Israeli settlements and military bases, and as a result, Burin's land and water resources dwindled. lSince 1982, more than 2,000 dunams of village land have been declared "state land" and then transferred to Har Bracha settlement.

      Over the past few years and more so since 2017, the villagers have been terrorized by the residents of Yitzhar and Har Bracha, the Givat Ronen outpost and others. Despite the close proximity of soldiers to an IDF base close to one of the village's schools, residents are suffering from numerous stone-throwing events, vehicle and fire arson, also reported in the press.

      In 2023, the prevention of the olive harvest in the village plot was more violent than ever. Soldiers and settlers walked with drawn weapons between the houses of the village and demanded that people stop harvesting in the village itself and in the private plots outside the village. The settlers from Yitzhar and Giv'at Roned raided the olive groves and stole crops. 300 olive trees belonging to the residents of Burin, near Yitzhar, were uprooted. The loss of livelihood from the olives causes long-term economic damage to the farmers' families, bringing them to the point of starvation.

      (updated for November 2023)

  • Habla CP (1393)

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    • Habla CP (1393)

      The Habla checkpoint (1393) was established on the lands of the residents of Qalqilya, on the short road that

      connected it for centuries to the nearby town of Habla. The separation barrier intersects this road twice and cut off the residents of Qalqilya from their lands in the seam zone.(between the fence and the green line).
      There is a passage under Road 55 that connects Qalqilya to the sabotage This agricultural barrier is used by the farmers and nursery owners established along Road 55 from the Green Line and on both sides of the kurkar road leading to the checkpoint.
      This agricultural checkpoint serves the residents of Arab a-Ramadin al-Janoubi (detached from the West Bank), who pass through it to the West Bank and back to their homes. The opening hours (3 times a day) of this agricultural checkpoint are longer than usual, about an hour (recently shortened to 45 minutes), and are coordinated with the transportation hours of a-Ramadin children studying in the occupied in the West Bank.

       

      מחסום חבלה: מערכת שערים
      Ronit Dahan-Ramati
      Apr-25-2025
      Habla Checkpoint: system of gates
  • 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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      חווארה: הבתים הישנים בשטח סי
      Shoshi Anbar
      May-18-2025
      Huwara: The old houses in Area C
  • Sarra

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    • Sarra
      The checkpoint is installed between the Palestinian village of Sera and the district city of Nablus,
      Since 2011, internal barriers Located among the West Bank Israeli settlements have somehow allowed, Palestinian residents to travel and move and reach various Palestinian cities.
      After the terrible massacre by the Hammas on October 7 upon Israelis in the communities around Gaza, internal checkpoints manned by the army were installed to prevent free passage for Palestinians.
      Many restrictions were imposed on the Palestinians in the West Bank. The prevention of movement shuttered the possibility of making a living in Israel. The number of Palestinian attacks by Israeli extremist settlelers increased along with the radicalization of the army against the Palestinians.
      The conduct at the Sera checkpoint is one of the manifestations of the restrictions on all aspects of the Palestinians' lives.

       

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