Huwara: the army is in the city 7 days a week
Habla – I read that 47 dunams were sequestered from the village to pave a new road, for Jews only. I called our friend O. who suggested we speak with nursery owners who live in Habla, which we did – but no one was willing to speak with us. They don’t know, haven’t heard, no problems. Everything is fine.
We told O., and he said they are afraid to speak up. Thus, the occupier has managed to frighten Palestinians. The safest way is to keep silent.
Azzun – We met Z. and his wife in the inner road of Nabi Elias. His son was working in Kafr Qassem without a permit and was caught. He is held in Hadarim prison. His trial begins tomorrow. The parents are afraid they’ll have to pay for his release. We hope not. The family is in dire economic condition.
Qaddum – We had hoped to meet Saker in his garage opposite Funduk, but he was not there. On Qaddum’s situation, below.
Huwara – on the main road we see few cars and some open shops. It’s certainly not the town we knew in the past.
Beita – No soldiers at the entrance. We made an appointment with the CEO at the council house. In the map I have, there is Upper and Lower Beita, and I ask what the difference is. In the 1980s Israelis made this division, but it is meaningless. There is one Beita, one village council.
The army arrives every day, and there are confrontations every day. Yesterday, a young boy was wounded in the leg. The soldiers perform the provocations. Children have not been throwing stones at soldiers, because the soldiers use live fire and it’s frightening. settlers enter the outskirts of the town, from Itamar and Evyatar. Evyatar has been built mainly on Beita lands, some of it on Qabalan land.
The town engineer joins the conversation. He is 42 and has never entered Israel. He asks Mustafa to organize a tour for him, he is dying to see Israel. So close, so far away.
Most of the town is situated in Area B. Only 10% of it is in Area C. They do not receive building permits for the part overlooking Yitzhar. From the eastern side, settlers come and throw stones, breaking windows.
Until the war, some of the residents worked in Israel-proper. Now most of them don’t. Some work for the PA, some market vegetables to other villages. They even eat up their savings and sell land.
Beita is populated by 14,000 persons.
They own 22,000 dunams.
There are 8 schools, both elementary and high schools.
After graduation, a few go to study abroad. Some study in West Bank universities, but checkpoints make movement difficult.
Electricity – comes from Israel.
Water – there’s a problem in the summers, not in the winters. Every house has a water hole that fills up with rain water.
Huwara – at the town hall we meet the deputy mayor. Huwara checkpoint is known as a focus of violent confrontations between the Israeli army and Palestinian civilians. It is the main checkpoint in those surrounding the Palestinian city of Nablus, in the northern West Bank. Since the main entrance to Nablus has been closed, life has become unbearable.
The army is in the city 7 days a week. First it made rounds on the main road, now vehicles enter all neighborhoods. Soldiers and Yitzhar settlers enjoy provoking the townspeople.
10 days ago settlers burnt a house and vehicle belonging to a Huwara resident.
On the hill at Einabus lives a Palestinian who owns cattle. One day settlers came and took the cattle, claiming it was stolen
The municipality helps renovations, but no aid arrives from the PA.
Such incidents are a kind of routine, but one does not get used to it.
Since the beginning of 2023, 43 houses went up in flames, only in Huwara itself. They have no one to call, no one helps. The Israelis do not only burn houses, they do not even let firefighters near them.
On October 6, the nephew of our host exited his home, soldiers shot him and he was killed on the spot.
Arbitrariness rules. The soldiers fire at anything moving because they feel like it, no law nor judgment. The way from Huwara to Nablus that once took 5 minutes, now takes 3 hours. That’s why the city of Nablus is empty. They have no one to turn to, no one helps them, only they are responsible for their own lives.
We exited with our heads lowered. It’s so terrible.
Qaddum
In the evening, I called Saker. Conditions have worsened lately. The army enters Qaddum on Fridays after prayer and closes all the exits from the mosque so that no protest demonstration can take place. Even this has been taken away.
No permits were given for the olive harvest. Representatives came, spoke, maps were coordinated, but in actual fact no permits were issued and the fruit just fell and rotted. Israelis who wished to come and help were told not to, in order not to run the risk.
Location Description
'Azzun
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Azoun (updated February 2019)
A Palestinian town situated in Area B (under civil Palestinian control and Israeli security control),
on road 5 between Nablus and Qalqiliya, east of Nabi Elias village. The inhabitants are allowed to construct and improve infrastructures. The Separation Fence has confiscated lands belonging to the town's people. In 2018 olive tree groves owned by one of its inhabitants were confiscated for the sake of paving a road to bypass Nabi Elias. Azoun population numbers 13,000, its economic state dire. Its infrastructures are poor, neglect and poverty rampant. In the meantime, the town council has completed paving an internal road for the inhabitants' welfare.
Because of its proximity to the Jewish settler-colony of Karnei Shomron and its outposts, the town suffers the intense presence of the Israeli army, especially at nighttime: soldiers enter homes, arrest suspects, trash the house and sometimes ruin it, as they do in numerous places in the West Bank. At times a checkpoint closes the entrance to the town, so no one can come in or get out.
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'Einabus
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'Einabus
A village in the Nablus district, west of Hawara, numbering about 3,000 people. 85% of the village's land in Area B, 15% in Area C. 114 dunams of its land were expropriated to establish the violent settlement of Yitzhar and its outposts. Due to the proximity and violence of the settlers sitting on the top of the mountain to invade the village lands, the inhabitants of Einabus regularly suffer from harassment by settlers throwing stones, smashing windows, cutting down olive groves, as well as arson of vehicles and fields. All these were intensified in the second decade of the 21st century.
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Beta
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Beta is a town of 12,000 people, high unemployment rate. Many work in Israel, others in agriculture. Neat ornamental system. Unemployment is high. Young people, even the educated, are forced to look for work in Israel. Medical services are available once a week.
Settlers from Yitzhar and Itamar harass residents frequently and prevent them from cultivating their fields: Permits are required from the DCO / DCL / DCL / DCL to go to work.
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Habla
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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.
Nina SebaDec-24-2024Habla checkpoint: the checkpoint is open.
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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 AkfaDec-24-2024Huwara: traffic jam on the main road
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Qaddum
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Qaddum
The village of Qaddum dates back approximately 4,000 years. Today’s villagers mostly work in agriculture and cultivae olive groves. The hilly landscape is covered with olive trees and are dotted with patches of green fields.
Qaddum was attached to the district of Nablus until 1994 at which time it joined the Qalqiliya district. The village is home to 4,000 inhabitants (2013), with 22,000 dunams (5,400 acres) of which 11,000 dunam (2700 acres) are in Area C*. Access to Area C requires coordination with the Israeli army, which means that access is almost non-existent.
The settlement of Kedumim was founded in 1975 on lands belonging to the ancient the village of Qaddum. Since then, Kedumim has expanded to include 5 settlements. The Kedumim settlements separate Qaddum village from its lands and from access to the main road. The road connecting Qaddum village to Route 55 was closed to its residents in 2003. The short ride (1.5 km or less than a mile) between Qaddum and a neighboring village - Jit, turned into a 12 km (7.5 miles) bumpy ride on an unpaved gravely road. Since 2004, residents of the village of Qaddum have been submitting requests to the authorities to reopen the old road leading to Route 55.
On July 2011, the villagers began holding weekly demonstrations in protest of the road closure and of the theft of their lands. They march to the edge of the village and there they stop. There is a regular routine to the demonstration which always follows with a confrontation with the army when it enters the village at the end of the blocked road. The army reacts to the demonstrations with sharp weapons, rubber bullets, tear gas and lately also live ammunition. Villagers are injured and hurt each week and often, dozens are arrested by the army. Young people and children are intimidated by the army when they photos are posted in the village streets.
On 12/7/19 a 10 year old boy was criticaaly wounded after he was shot in the head by live ammunition while standing at the entrance to his home in Qaddum during a demonstration.*Area C is an administrative division of the West Bank established by the Oslo II Accords in 1995. The Palestinian Authority is responsible for medical and education services and Israel is responsible for infrastructure and administration.
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