Huwwara Beit Furik
Huwwara Beit Furik, Sunday 13.08.06, AMObservers: Sharon V and Ditza Y (reporting)Translation: Ruth F.The situation in Beit Furik is unbearable. 7:50 Za’atara: There were no cars in the western checkpoint. 40 cars were standing in line in the southern direction. There were 3 inspection posts.8:10 -24 cars were standing at Izhar junction.8:25Huwwara: 50-60 people were at the checkpoint.There was one detainee in the cell near the oubliette (to its north). The carousel for those who enter Nablus slowed the pace of those passing, down. 9:05 -The detainee said he had been waiting there since 6:00. According to the military police near by, he had been waiting there since 7:00. We asked the checkpoint commander, but his answer was: He will wait there until the examination is finished. 9:35Beit Furik: A Palestinian that we met at the checkpoint told us that yesterday people had to wait at the checkpoint since 14:00 until 21:00. The traffic at the checkpoint was heavy. There were 20 cars and more then 200 people standing in line. We were told that the checkpoint was closed for over and hour and a half due to some problems they were having with the carousel. There was only one soldier checking the pedestrians who were going into Nablus. The soldiers were tense; they could barely handle the load of work, but they were still faire towards the Palestinians. The people there were also tense. Some claimed they have been waiting since 6:00 am. A young man gathered around himself a group of about 20 to 30 young people that passed the carousels and surrounded him. We thought they were about to initiate a revolt- but after several minutes they went back in line.9:45 – We called the humanitarian center and asked that they send more people to man the inspection posts. Gilad promised to take care of it. We also tried calling the DCO but there was no answer, and then we called Hana Barag, asking her to try and help. There was a Jip with a little girl on her way to the hospital in Nablus, we asked the soldier let the jip come to the beginning of the line and he agreed. He also let a doctor, who came to us and said he had been waiting for an hour, to go out of the line.9:55 -We are not sure if this has anything to do with our call to the humanitarian center- but they open up a special line for women. This line was moving quickly, the inspections were done fast and it shortened significantly.10:15 -About 7-10 young people got out of the carousels and started running towards Nablus. The soldiers ran after them, we aren’t sure whether they captured them, but after several minutes at 10:20 all activity in the checkpoint was stopped. The soldiers said that the received orders from above. The women were sent back to the regular line. A large number of people were also waiting at the exit from Nablus, were couldn’t estimate the exact number. On the way leading to Nablus there were at least 220 people and children.10:43 – The reactivated the checkpoint, but not before one of the soldiers asked all the people who were waiting to stand back, and make sure that they reach the inspection posts separately and according to order.The soldier agreed to our request and let several people, who were with their babies or ill children, to step out of the line. There were many volunteers, from a European humanitarian organization and who live in Nablus, at the checkpoint. The solider had also agreed to their request to give priority to people with different problems. 10:55 -We left Beit Furik.11:05Awarta: The people from the both, that stood there last Sunday, requesting for money from the people parking at the checkpoint, wasn’t there. The soldiers didn’t know anything about the both. Perhaps we were the ones that made it disappear? 11:20Izhar: 20 vehicles.11:40 -There were no cars at Za’atara checkpoint.
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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