Huwara: Prevent women and children from joining a family event
Summary: Light traffic, there is a roadblock at Burin (Yitzhar) Junction, there are significant hold-ups inspecting cars entering Nablus.
An illustration of how difficult it is to live in prison is Beit Furiq.
7:10 a.m. Za’atra (Tapuach) Junction empty. The chanukiah standing in the middle of the roundabout declares defiantly “We are here!” According to the roadblock commander, there are no limitations for those crossing.
Burin (Yitzhar) Junction7:20 a.m. The roadblock is reinforced and functioning. When we arrived there were eight vehicles. The inspection is fairly slow but the queue moves.
Huwwara7:35 a.m.The roadblock is almost empty; the vehicle lane is almost empty too. Even so, each vehicle is checked meticulously. The taxi being checked from the moment we arrived is held up for an additional twenty minutes. It was simply unloaded and put back together again. In the inspection lane from the direction of Nablus five to six soldiers crowd together all the time, including the commander. The opposite lane is not permanently staffed. Each car that arrives waits a long time (5 – 15 minutes) until the commander makes up his mind and instructs the soldiers to go and inspect it. After it happened a few times we complained to the commander. It didn’t really help. In spite of the low number of people and cars crossing the behavior was bad and inconsiderate. At a certain point, a car with an Israeli number plate arrived and moved forward – when the driver got fed up with waiting – to the checkpoint without being instructed to do so. A soldier jumped up and shouted to the driver: “Did someone tell you to cross? Reverse back to the green bin!” After being held up for ten minutes he was allowed to cross anyway. There are no limitations for crossing today.
The pedestrian lane: there are two checkpoints and a humanitarian lane. The inspection includes removing belts and raising topcoats. The soldiers talk among themselves in loud voices over the heads of those crossing. Here too the inspection is slow, but not inordinately. At least the soldiers noticed when someone forgot his telephone at the checkpoint and ran after him to return it.8:45 a.m.Two Swiss photographers who have been in Israel for almost a year are given permission to take photographs. The soldiers do not object to photographs. They are pleased to meet us and are aware of our activities.
They have already been to various roadblocks. They want to know if they can use the apartheid road in the direction of Beit Furiq.
Beit Furiq 9:00 a.m. When we arrived the roadblock was empty. We were ordered not to cross the imaginary line.
After a number of minutes, two women with two small children arrived wishing to go into Beit Furik for a family visit. It’s the middle of the morning. In their I.D. cards, it says that they live in Nablus. Of course, they are denied permission to cross, but the conversation is held in loud voices and at the corner of the inspection lane across from armed soldiers. The children burst into tears. From a distance, we asked them not to shout because the children are frightened!!! The women retreat behind the turnstiles. We were unable to help them. In spite of the refusal, they remained to wait for salvation which would not come. Is better evidence needed of the prison-like conditions of two villages: Beit Furiq and Beit Dejan? Or of the influence of the roadblocks on children?!
Awarta9:30 a.m.The traffic flows. There is no crowding.
9:40 a.m. Back to Huwwara
The traffic is a little heavier. The problem of hold-ups for the cars coming from the south has not been solved, on the contrary, the roadblock commander spoke on the telephone for over ten minutes close to the waiting cars (four in number), and for the length of the conversation did not signal to his soldiers to go and check them. We spoke to him about it again and emphasized that we are aware that the inspection can only be done in the presence of two soldiers. One of the soldiers did his work while cracking nuts! We contacted the Centre and asked for the DCO representative to come in order to make them work more efficiently. Burin (Yitzhar) Junction10:15 a.m.There are about twenty vehicles in two messy lines in front of the roadblock. We again contacted the Centre to ask them to send DCO reinforcement. The end!
Beit Furik checkpoint
See all reports for this place-
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)
See all reports for this place-
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)
-
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
-
Za'tara (Tapuah)
See all reports for this place-
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.
Ronit Dahan-RamatiJun-9-2026Za'atara (Tapuach Junction). The Temple Flag Above a Station
-
