Huwwara
Huwwara, Beit Furiq. 7 July 2005 Watchers: Tzvia S., Nava A (reporting)There are changes to the routine – there was an alert.At Tapuach Junction there is a moderate queue of those leaving from Nablus.Huwwara: 2nd lieutenant A., manages his people efficiently and in a business like manner with Oleg from the D.C.O. complementing him.This morning there is a change – all young people up to the age of thirty wishing to enter Nablus are requested to show their I.D. cards. The explanation – there is an alert.At about 8:00 another ‘bus with women and children’ arrives and all the passengers are asked to alight and wait (in the sun of course). The soldiers surround the bus for a rigorous check and the dog handler gets in for a thorough check. The explanation – it is a regular, random check. Meanwhile a long, long queue is building up of cars at the exit from Nablus.A little after 8:00 we get an urgent telephone call from Esti who had talked with a Palestinian at Beit Furiq who reported that the roadblock is closed. We leave Huwwara in the direction of Beit Furiq.(By the way, we were told that today there was a leaving party for Ra’ad from the D.C.O., we will need to get used to the new person.)Beit Furiq: closure because of those praying at Joseph’s Grave.A Palestinian who has been stuck at the roadblock since early in the morning, telephoned Esti before 8:00 a.m. and asked for help. Just after 8:00 she asked us to go to Beit Furik. Unusually, a long queue of women and men both at the entrance to and at the exit from Nablus has built up.The roadblock commander, a 1st sergeant, refused to identify himself and spoke to us in a hostile manner. According to him the roadblock was not closed and had functioned normally all morning. It was difficult to converse with those waiting in the queue because not one of them spoke Hebrew or English. The other soldiers and the Palestinian cleaner chose the right of silence.We found out when we checked that in honour of Rosh Chodesh the army had closed the whole area so that the settlers could pray at Joseph’s Grave without being disturbed.color = red> When we arrived at the roadblock the soldiers checked those waiting very slowly, one at a time, first those leaving then those entering. The checkpoint for women, who were in a separate queue, was not staffed and the soldier checking the cars was not trying hard either.We tried again to talk to the 1st sergeant and we were waved aside with “you won’t tell me how to work” and “don’t stand here you are interfering with the work”.After we made a number of telephone calls the tempo was speeded up and the queue was over and done with.Meanwhile the Palestine who had asked for help came over to us. According to him he had been at the roadblock since 6:30 a.m. waiting for it to open.We returned to the 1st sergeant and asked if he would like to change his version. Very aggressively he claimed that what he had said at the beginning was the truth, the roadblock had been open since the morning as usual.“Don’t you think you should check out who is not telling the truth?”After Beit Furiq we went to Awarta where the crossing of watermelons continues sluggishly. The soldiers report to us – all is quiet.On the way three fawns dash mischievously across the forbidden road, they think they are the lords of the manor.On the way back the queue at Tapuach roadblock lengthens, we counted 17 cars waiting from the direction of Nablus, the other directions were clear.
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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Ronit Dahan-RamatiAug-24-2026Huwara: The school on the outskirts of town and an outpost hidden among the trees
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