Huwwara
Huwwara south 23.9 AMObservers: Ofra K, Micky F, Yudit A (reporting)Huwwara south 8.30: The checkpoint is closed. More than 80 people crammed behind the plastic barrier and the turnstile. Women and children. Children tired of standing are sitting on the steps of the stinking toilet installation, most of them since 6.00 AM (the checkpoint was closed yesterday at noon immediately after the attack at French Hill).Passage instructions: ambulances with patients, pysicians, only those providing urgent humanitarian aid. A gynecologist arrives who works at Rafidia hospital in Nablus and has permits. He is barred because the soldier claims a gynecologist isn’t a doctor. He goes through after we explain to the soldier that even if he only treats women, he is still a doctor.As soon as we emerged from our car, dozens of Palestinians came over with forms and stories to tell. They asked us to help, to talk to the commander, to understand the problem and the predicament. And now we were frustrated at our powerlessness to help.The soldiers shout: go home because the checkpoint will be closed till the evening, come back tomorrow. When they tell the soldiers their home is in Nablus, the soldiers tell them to wait. The commander tells us to talk directly to him and him alone.A family of about 10 women and men on their way to a funeral have been waiting since the early hours of the morning, and are barred from passing. After fruitless appeals to the commander and DCO representatives, we summon K from the DCO who orders that they go through at once without checking. At 10.00 six women and ten men go through. Several others try to use the funeral to their advantage, and there is some confusion. 10.45: a Palestinia on his way to the same funeral is detained; he is wanted by the Security Service. He is blindfolded and shackled, we don’t know why. The soldier who shackles him and escorts him to the Security Service vehicle treats him gently and with touching consideration, holds his mobile phone so that he can make a call, warns him of a step so that he won’t stumble and calls his brother or uncle who gives him some money.We do our best to facilitate the passage for sick people. The soldiers, due to circumstances, are responsible for deciding who is or isn’t sick, although some of them don’t know the difference between a geologist and a gynecologist. In four cases where we appealed to the commander about a patient, he told us to load him onto the ambulance and in this manner they went through. Many of the patients refused to board the ambulance because it costs much more than a taxi and they had no money, but in the end it all worked out. As regards four other patients, we contacted Dalia Basa, who gave permission.The soldiers announced from time to time that the checkpoint is closed till the evening, and anyone who wasn’t a resident of Nablus should leave.Before we went, a young man asked our help. Yesterday, after the check, he was given someone else’s ID. We didn’t succeed in helping him because the soldiers were all occupied.12.20: The checkpoint is closed. Apart from a few who went through or gave up and turned back, the same people are standing and waiting.Someone from the DCO said that the checkpoint was closed because there was a hunt for two terrorists in Nablus.
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)
.
Ronit Dahan-RamatiAug-24-2026Huwara: The school on the outskirts of town and an outpost hidden among the trees
-
