Huwwara, יום ד’ 4.3.09, בוקר
Translation: Suzanne O.
Dedicated to Vivi.
"It's my first time", the boy whose father took him for the first time to a brothel for a taster shouted excitedly.
"My first, my first, Gadsi (the female commander) come and see. My first."
That was what was heard from the loudspeakers throughout the whole area of Huwwara roadblock, the loudspeakers broadcast the shouts of joy over the heads of the shocked people queuing at the turnstiles, all the way to the taxi rank by Nablus and right up to the queuing cars.
Excited soldiers came out of their concreted positions to the one whose first time it was, entered his position, patted him on the shoulder, "well done, mate".
For weeks he sits inside his position, checking ID after ID and eagerly watching all his mates busy with an orgy of finding terrorists, handcuffing them, leading them to the cell and passing them into the hands of the Shabak. And only he, what a shame, everyone turns out to be clean when he finds them.
But today, as he left for the roadblock the sun shone on him, and he knew. "Today something good is going to happen to me". And so it was.
A young man, well dressed, just like a terrorist, came up 'bingo' and he couldn't keep his joyful shouts at his good luck to himself.
The fairly quiet queue was crawling along anyway. The humanitarian lane was quick. The queue of younger men was held up for between an hour and a half and two hours. But now, with all the celebration, nothing moved at all.
I went to the side to watch the celebration. If I had gone a moment earlier the commander would have shouted (there was another commander apart from Gadsi): close the roadblock everyone, no one crosses until she leaves. Now he had nothing left to threaten. Everyone was busy congratulating their colleague and no one was working.
Meanwhile a young man arrives claiming that yesterday he was detained from six in the evening until ten thirty. At ten thirty, after the roadblock was closed, he was told he could leave. What about his ID card he asked. Come back tomorrow and you'll get it. Now tomorrow has arrived and he has come to get it. But no one knows what he is talking about. And no one has time to think about it. After all, their colleague has just lost his virginity so what do they care about some document belong to someone who was detained yesterday for four and a half hours.
After two and a half hours of searching his ID was returned to him.
But, until the lost document was found, the celebrations were at their peak. The young terrorist was led to the cell. From the other side of the fence we saw him told to raise his shirt, turn up his trousers, turn out his pockets and take off his shoes. A special soldier arrived to smell his shoes, perhaps he was from the Border Police dogs?
Apparently his shoes were not very smelly because they were returned to him.
After a while the soldiers realised that they were in terrible danger. Once again they returned to the door of the cell, again the rolling up of the trousers, shirt and pockets and removing shoes.
This time no one smelled them. It seems once was enough. I told Natalie, the young girl who was with us (French with a cute accent): now they'll handcuff and blindfold him.
What, said Natalie, they can't!
Without asking Natalie's permission they did handcuff and blindfold him and led him to the front of the cell, the side facing the inner side of the roadblock.
Natalie could not bear it. She ran over to them shouting, you are not allowed to do that. The soldiers were astounded, is there something they are not allowed to do? It is allowed they told her. We can do anything we like. And to prove it they shut the roadblock down until she left. She left with tears in her eyes. It was her first time too.
We drove to Huwwara village. The young man, Isam, who we met as he left the roadblock after queuing for an hour and who begged us to come and visit, gave a hint as to why people are being held up for so long at the roadblock.
The soldier joked with me he said. He pointed to the female soldier sitting next to him and asked Isam if he would like to marry her. Isam answered that no, he would not like to marry her and she got angry and held him up there for about ten minutes and didn't call anyone else forward to cross the turnstile while she punished him. Who knows. Perhaps there was a matter of baffling virginity there as well.
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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