Huwwara
HUWWARA, Sunday 22 November 2004 AMObservers: Gal K., Orli P., Annelien K., Tal H. (reporting) colour=red>There were no cars in the Nablus-bound direction at the Tapuah/Za’tara junction. From the other direction, some 10 cars were waiting to be checked .We arrived at the Huwwara South checkpoint at 10:00 to find very few people in line, and six detainees [ typically, these are men aged from 16 to 30 or 35 who have no passage permits; recently, young women, too, have been detained. The detainees’ ID details are phoned through to the General Security Services (GSS, also known as the Shabak or the Shin Bet, the Hebrew acronym for the GSS) for checking against a central list of security suspects and the answers are then relayed back to the checkpoints. This cumbersome process can take considerable time, and that can be prolonged even more if the soldiers wait to accumulate a batch of ID cards before passing them on to the GSS , or if they behave in a similarly tardy manner at the end of the process, waiting until they have a batch of GSS clearances before they release individual detainees. Meanwhile, the detainees are virtually prisoners at the checkpoint where the soldiers retain the ID cards until the entire process is completed]. Among them was a student anxious to get to his exam at the el-Quds Open University in Nablus. But only an-Najah students were permitted to go through.There were three soldiers and their commander working. It was relatively quiet. But the soldiers were incessantly sarcastic and contemptuous of the Palestinians. A man approached the soldiers holding out his ID card and, at his own initiative, also taking out a permit to show them. But today men over 30 were allowed through without permits. The soldier, noticing that he was over 30, immediately seized on this: “What, don’t you know you don’t need a permit???! Now, really… “A man on his way to join his wife giving birth in a Nablus hospital was “invited” gruffly to the “pen” where the detainees were gathered. . Orli began the Dalia Bassa procedure (i.e. phoning the health coordinator for the Occupied Territories), and after about an hour he was let through.At 11.15 we moved across to Huwwara North where there were seven detainees. Here there were five soldiers manning the checking post.A detainee turned to us, sadly: he had graduated from university in Nablus; his home was in Tubas (near Jenin), and he was trying to get to a work interview at the Palestinian Ministry of Education in Ramallah, to which he had been invited — but only by phone. He had no written appointment. So, he had been refused passage because he had no permit. But, in order to get a permit he needed employment papers. For these, he needed a permit. We called the District Coordinating Office (DCO) [the army section that handles civilian matters; it generally has representatives at the checkpoints ostensibly to alleviate the lot of the Palestinians] which provided instructions: he should go to the DCO Tubas-Jenin with a written appointment for his interview and then things would be sorted out. But he can only go from Nablus to Tubas in a couple of days time , on a day when students are allowed out of Nablus. The bureaucracy clarified courtesy of a Machsomwatch phone call to the DCO. Huwwara North too was very quiet this morning. We noticed one especially calm and respectful soldier who handed out a candy to a toddler waiting for his mother who was weighed down by his baby brother and various pieces of luggage.
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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