Huwwara
Huwwara, 21 March 2006 a.m.Watchers: Yael P., Rachel A. (reporting)Tapuach roadblock8:30 a.m.There are about thirty cars from the northerly direction.We go into Beita (in Nadim’s vehicle) to see what is going on there. From the road we can see the house whose upper floor the IDF has taken over: an Israeli flag is flying over it. At the entrance to the village there are two square concrete blocks which make it difficult for vehicles to pass. The main entrance to the market is blocked with building rubble. However, it turns out that the eastern entrance, narrower and less easy to use, is open and the market is doing brisk business.HuwwaraDeresh, the DCO officer, is at the roadblock. He behaves openly and flexibly. The impression is that he is trying to communicate a message to the soldiers: you can behave rigidly towards suspects, but it is possible to behave humanely and even to cut corners with ordinary mortals.In the detainees’ shed is an Israeli Arab woman, originally from Nablus. She tells us that she visited her blind mother for mother’s day, now she wants to return, and they are detaining her. The roadblock commander says that he has called the police to deal with her but, if they don’t come within a reasonable time, he will release her. And indeed, after some ten minutes, she was no longer there.There is a resident of Nablus whose permit has expired but Deresh and the soldiers do not let him through, they claim that he often tries it on with them.9:00 a.m.Two suspects are arrested. A young boy is put in the hut and soldiers with weapons drawn surround him. He is ordered to remove his shoes and to lift his trousers and shirt and then his hands are handcuffed behind his back. It appears that three bottles of petrol and two knives were found in his rucksack. The boy looks about 14 years old at the most and, from talks with the soldiers, it turns out that someone gave him NIS50 and asked him to take the above weaponry across.The whole thing seems to be very strange. The three bottles lie on the ground near the lock-up and everyone moves around them carefully. After about a quarter of an hour the rucksack and its contents are moved to a hole several metres east of the roadblock so that sappers can deal with them. Yael asks the roadblock commander: Why should he take three bottles of petrol from Nablus to some other place? Is it not possible to find petrol and to fill three bottles anywhere???The question remains floating in the air. No one knows the answer. I swear I saw soldiers hiding a smile. An hour or so later two ‘blue’ policemen come, they question the youth and finally take him with them in their jeep.The second prisoner who was arrested at the same time was handcuffed immediately. With both hands behind his back he is put into the checking booth, a small area about the size of a toilet. After about ten minutes they cover his eyes – it appears that a crack above the door enabled him to see what is going on outside.The soldiers tell us that he is wanted and he also has a forged I.D. card. About two hours later he is taken out of the booth and two soldiers walk him in the direction of the camp.The crossing at the roadblock functions well most of the time. At about 10:30 a.m. all at once there was a queue of twenty people which moved very slowly. The pressure lifted after about half an hour. Usually the roadblock commander and the soldiers behave properly and politely and try not to make unnecessary problems for people.
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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Shoshi AnbarMay-18-2025Huwara: The old houses in Area C
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