Haris, Huwwara
Huwwara
We reach the Haris women’s club at 09:00. The coordinator isn’t there; this time she had left a key. Five women arrive. The others didn’t know there’d be a class. Naomi uses the lesson to review and go over a text they’d received last time. They participate actively; the conversation flows – in Hebrew.
We continue toward Tapuach junction following a report about a Palestinian who had been shot and killed there last night; according to the media he’d arrived armed and attacked the soldiers. A Border Police soldier was also said to have been wounded in the exchange of gunfire. According to the news, arrests were made last night in Huwwara.
We drive to Huwwara to see what’s going on .
Highway 5 toward Tapuach junction is open; there’s no unusual military presence, nor at the junction itself – only a reinforcement of soldiers at the hitchhiking station. The inspections didn’t seem rigorous.
Huwwara is shut down. Overturned garbage bins are burning on the road; a burning tire emits heavy black smoke a little farther away. There are many military, Border Police and police vehicles in the town. An ambulance speeds toward Tapuach junction. Armed soldiers in body armor remove the roadblocks. They ignore us and the few residents standing in the doorways of the closed shops.
Here’s what one of the residents told us: The locals decided to close the shops. The Israelis didn’t impose a closure; it’s a business strike in mourning and in solidarity with the family of the deceased.
The dead man, according to the locals, a 22-year-old, wasn’t armed. He arrived at Tapuach junction at 11:30 at night to receive a shipment of mobile phones for his store. He and his family have three telephone stores in Huwwara. He came in a taxi but the driver returned to the town; he remained there by himself, waiting for the Israeli businessman. Then the soldiers shot him.
The account raises many questions. Which haven’t any answers.
Huwwara junction (the entrance to Highway 60) is blocked by a civilian vehicle marked “Yitzhar Security,” and perpendicular to it is a car which apparently also belongs to settlers. No one enters or leaves. Cars coming from Nablus seek alternative routes. A uniformed policeman stands next to the settlers, maintaining disorder.
But at the Huwwara checkpoint everything is calm and peaceful, there are no inspections and traffic flows from Nablus.
On our way back we saw a Palestinian taxi detained at Tapuach junction and many more soldiers at the plaza and round about.
We returned via Highway 5.
The security guard at the Shomron crossing peeked into our car and smiled us on.
Haris
See all reports for this place-
Haris
The village has 4,500 people and they have 5,000 dunams of land. The entrance to the village is blocked and opened arbitrarily, without informing the residents.The village has a seasonal checkpoint that blocks the road to the agricultural land and this checkpoint opens once a year! 2,500-3,000 dunams were stolen from the village in order to build the settlements of Revava and Netafim, which are located west of Haris.
The center of the village is Area B and around Area C. The population grows but the occupation does not permit new construction in Area C.
-
Huwwara
See all reports for this place-
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)
.
Shoshi AnbarMay-18-2025Huwara: The old houses in Area C
-