Huwwara & Beit Furik
Huwwara, Beit Furik, Tuesday 1.3.05, PMObservers: Adiva G., Mayanit S. (reporting)14:15 – Tapuach Junction, 10 cars.At the back-to-back checkpoint at Balata there are no trucks on the main road. There are 5 vehicles watiing inside in each direction. We didn’t time it.At Beit Furik it is quiet, with a lot of traffic. Unusally, most of them are inspected. The soldiers try hard and anwer our questions politely. The maximum amount of time which we measured was 6 minutes. P., a young man was detained because since the last 4 numbers on his ID matched the lists in the soldiers’ hands. The checkpoint commander called several times to try and get a permit to release him. he was released after 15 minutes. Adult parents and their son, about 20, requested entrance. The son did not have a permit, he is not allowed to enter, apparently after it was explained that he would not be able to go out again.Huwwara North: 3 detainees, a line of people behind the turnstiles. Exactly when we arrive, they arrest one of the detainees, that is, they cover his eyes and handcuff him with plastic handcuffs behind his back. They take him to the detention cell (a cement block, like a guard station, with an iron door) and bring him a plastic chair. The prisoner looks as though he has gone through this before and isn’t particularly upset, he complains that the handcuffs are tight. The checkpoint commander tells me that they put the handcuffs over his sweater, so they wouldn’t be painful, but, nevertheless, he opens them are rearranges them.The atmosphere is tense, even though there are no special incidents, and the traffic is moving. The maximum waiting time is 8 minutes. The checkpoint commander calls several times for them to come and get the prisoner. A car from the DCO arrives after 20 minutes to get him, and another youth joins them in order to arrange a permit. The detainees are released, another one is detained before we leave. People are used to the mechanical devices, most of them wait another moment so as not to be caught in the turnstile. Some still do get caught, and wait until the soldiers presses on the button, one person at a time.Huwwara South: empty16:45, Tapuach Junction: 18 cars at the exit, 5 at the entrance.We were asked to go to Kfar a-Zawiyya, where there was a temporary roadblock. Volunteers (IWPC) called up and said that the soldiers are not allowing an elderly woman, sick, to pass through. We stopped at a-Zawiyya on highway #5, there is no exit from the highway to the confusing road which connects the villages. Workers pass down the dirt track, coming home from work. The tortuous path is too difficult for a woman with a baby or an elderly person. There are 4 soldiers plus a Border Police jeep which had just arrived. Border Policemen are checking the people and the vehicles. Suddenly, the soldiers spread out on a small green hill nearby and bring the workers who had just come down with me from the main road a few minutes before, trying to go home without crossing the checkpoint. These “escapees”, workers around 35-50 years old, are detained. They complain of being tired, point out their houses which are so close. The soldiers are angry and don’t let me talk with the volunteers. They won’t tell me what happened, or what unit they belong to. Those waiting in the cars say that they have been there half an hour. They say that there were shots nearby. Some say that the shooting was yesterday, and some that it was 3 hours ago. The soldiers leave, the tension goes down. I approach one of the volunteers (with permission of the Border Police) who says that the soldiers had arrived about 3 hours ago, blocked the path, none of them speak Arabic. The argument concerned a woman who was sick and on her way to the doctor.The Border Police claimed that they didn’t know exactly why they had been brought in from Tulkarm. They don’t deny that the workers were detained as a punishment; they call and ask if they can release them, and are refused. They promise me that they will release them soon. Since the workers were detained “only” for 15 minutes, there is no point in making calls on their behalf. The volunteers from IWPC promised to call if they weren’t released soon.
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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