Huwwara
Huwwara 8.9 AMObservers: Ruti, Tushka, MichalHuwwara north: 08.00: Arrival at the checkpoint. About 50 detainees, most students there since o6.oo. Others are young people on their way to hospitals. When we asked the checkpoint commander, a sergeant why he doesn’t allow students with student cards to pass through, he said he’d let most through and was detaining some randomly. Why?9.15: None of the detainees have been released.Without prior warning, two of the detainees are ordered to kneel with their faces to the wall. Because of these two “suspects” all checking is immediately halted.9.15: some of the detainees were sent home, others were allowed into Nablus.One of the soldiers asked if we’d brought any goodies to eat. The other said: Don’t take anything from them. Even if I was dying of hunger, I wouldn’t take a thing. Let them give it to the Arabs.”A father arrives carrying a little girl and wants to go through to hospital. The child has a large birthmark on her cheek. A soldier says: “Her father bashed her up at home and now he wants to go through.” The commander tries to restrain two crude and unpleasant soldiers and says of one of them: “In two days time, he’s out of here.”Huwwara south10.30: Three soldiers, including a woman, are checking the people in line. One of them is eating, the woman is smoking.The DCO representative was there, so we succeeded in helping in several cases of young men waiting for permits.
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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