Huwwara North & South
Huwwara, Wednesday 23.2.05, PM We got to Huwwara at 4:30PM . At the Southern Checkpoint there were 2 detainees who had been there for 10 minutes. The line wasout side the turnstile with about 30 people. The traffic was moving. In the Northern Checkpoint things were moving along. The younger men went through the turnstiles and the women and older men were outside the covered area. The officer on duty was B. and the Matak Representative was O. There were a few detainees. One had been there for over an hour and was released very shortly after we came. The second one had been there for over 3 hours. The officer told us he was suspected of having a false ID. This was an example of the right hand not knowing what the left was doing. At some point, due to the sharp eye of Yeudit, it was discovered that the man’s ID was waiting to be checked by the police and the police had already been at the checkpoint for over 45 minutes but they hadn’t been notified. When the right hand discovered it’s left hand the ID was handed over to the police and in 2 minutes the police okayed the ID and the man was released. He looked very upset at having been held up for so long for no good reason. While we were there were several more detainees. One man was held up because the soldier made a mistake in calculating his age. He was thought to be 25 when in fact he was older. The officer discovered this rather quickly and released him. A couple were held up because the wife had forgotten her ID at home. The Matak Representative O. was checking them out. He is very earnest in wanting to help so we felt we could leave it in his hands. We left at 5:30PM.
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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