Duma: Soldiers and settlers provoke people on the street
Duma All villages on our way to Duma – Qusra, Akraba, Jurish – have iron gates that are closed. The entrance to Duma was open. On the side are a pile of dirt and two large rocks the army uses to close the entrance when ‘necessary’.
13:30 We met the head of the local council, Suliman Dawabsha, who tells us about the problems inhabitants experience on a daily basis. Soldiers and colonists enter the place, provoke people on the street, take their phones and check them, and if they see a picture of Hamas or a Palestine flag on the cell phone, they stop the owners, beat them up and release them when they feel like it.
On Tuesday, January 28th, he was in Nablus and on his way back to Duma, he had to go through the Awarta Checkpoint. He got there at 11 a.m., and due to pressure and inspections there he came to Duma at 2 a.m.!
Another case that week: a 70-year-old woman was on her way back from Nablus after a dialysis treatment. On her way, near Til village the checkpoint was closed and they had to drive on a very rough dirt track. She had a hard time. On their way they ran into a group of soldiers who waited for people taking this track, took the woman’s ID as well as that of her son who was driving. They also took the car keys in spite of the woman’s begging and saying she was suffering pains. The soldiers kept their ears closed and left without giving back the car keys and IDs. Eventually the son found a way to start the car, found a nail and somehow started it – the car was very old… It took them from 1 p.m. until 6 p.m
The village has 4 springs that are the water source for the locality. settlers have over the springs and the grazing grounds, so Bedouins living in Duma have stopped growing their sheep and goats which were their source of livelihood, and now their economic situation is dire.
14:50 Huwara There is a long waiting line of cars on the main road, soldiers standing in Huwara’s northern entrance stopped the vehicles, took the drivers out and inspected the cars thoroughly. Israeli cars took over and we remained in the line until it was our turn. It took us 40 minutes.
We drove through the Awarta Checkpoint, another long line of cars in both directions.
15:30 Beit Furik A long waiting line of cars for those returning from Nablus to Beit Furik.
16:00 Al Funduk In the middle of the main road stands an army jeep with several soldiers standing by it, the two army posts at the northern entrance to the village were manned by soldiers with pointed rifles.
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.
Ronit Dahan-RamatiJan-29-2025Awarta: a long line of cars
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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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Duma
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Duma
A village in the Nablus governorate, with 3,000 residents. They owned some 18,000 dunams, 500 dunams of which the village itself was built. However, after the settlement of Migdaleim annexed a large part of their land, their area was reduced to only 2,000 dunams.On July 31, 2015, two houses in the town were torched with petrol bombs. Sa'ad and Riham Dawabsha, and their infant, Ali Sa'ad Dawabsha, were burned to death. Another son was seriously injured. "Revenge" and "King Messiah" were spray painted on the walls of the house. The trial of the arsonist, the settler Amiram Ben Uliel, is still underway (2019), and a plea bargain was signed in May 2018 with the minor who participated in the planning of the arson.
The closure imposed by the army, the poor roads that they are forced use due to the lack of paving permits from the Civil Administration, along with the lack of public transportation, all these difficulties cut off the village from nearby Nablus and Ramallah.
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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)
.Fathiya AkfaJan-29-2025Huwara: traffic jam on the main road
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