Huwwara, Beit Furik, Tapuach Junc.
Huwwara, Beit Furik and Tapuach Junction, Wednesday 22.3.06, AMTushka K., Ilana H., Nina S. (reporting)No special events, a long queue of cars from the north at Tapuach, on the way there and back.A Cab driver got into trouble with the soldiers at Beit Furik. He was handcuffed and detained for 3 hours.7.40 Tapuach JunctionNo line from the west, about 50 cars in line from the north. The DCO was aware of this and told us they are trying to improve the situation. We rushed to Beit Furik and we were told of some trouble there.8.00 Beit FurikA thin passage of pedestrians in both directions. About 20 cars wait in line into Nablus. Their passage was swift and the line diminished in 10 minutes. We saw a few elderly persons that were guided through by the soldiers without waiting in the queue. A cab driver is handcuffed in the detainee enclosure. We are not allowed to go near him nor to go around the CP. The CP commander says his soldiers are under stress due to yesterday’s occurrences and he does not want us to distress them more. His story about the cab driver is that the driver drove into the junction where he stopped, as 2 other cars were in front of him at the CP. He was asked to retreat which he did not do. A second request remained unanswered so he was told to get out of the car. He started creating havoc and hitting and therefore was cuffed and sent to the enclosure and his ID is being checked.We went to hear from the cab drivers, parked across the road, what happened. Their story was that there was a huge queue of cars and pedestrians in the morning and this driver was taking a man with a heart attack to hospital. He decided to cut short the queue, due to the urgency of his Mission. The soldiers attacked him, shot in the air and hit him, then cuffed him and sent him to the enclosure. The ill man was eventually transported past the CP and on to another taxi to go into Nablus hospital.We called the DCO and asked them to deal with this matter, of which they were already aware. About 10 AM we were told he is being released and so he was a short while later.8.50 HuwwaraThe CP is quite, a lot of pedestrians entering Nablus, some of the younger ones are being stopped for ID checks at the entrance to the new passage east of the CP. A few cars are going out; it takes between 20-40 minutes to wait in the queue. A man was detained coming out of Nbalus. He lives in Nablus but his address is Gaza. He says he has been living in Nablus for the last 7 years, his wife and many sons live there and he runs a shop there, but he cannot get the authorities to change his address. The soldiers have been trying to find out what to do and until we left, an hour after he was detained, there still was no answer though they were all the time on the phone to their superiors.At some point there were 6 detainees, all released within minutes. A young female teacher was asked to undergo a physical check as she had a photo of a young man, who was killed in Balata camp, in her bag. She said he was her pupil. She was forced into the checking cubicle but the soldier girls was scared to get into it with her so she had to open her clothes with the door ajar for the soldier to peep into it and see. We asked the male soldiers around to turn their backs while this check was being performed. Quite a bizarre site!!! The picture was confiscated as incitement material! (Naturally our camera was not on hand).10.50 -A flying checkpoint at the entrance to Huwwara from the north (it was not there when we passed in the morning). 12 cars are waiting, fast check.11.00 Tapuach – there are about 30 cars in line from the north. No line from the west.
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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