Huwwara PM
HUWWARA, Thursday 24 June 2004 PMObservers: Nili, Anat, Menuha and Nora (reporting)colour = red>Since we were only four people, we decided to concentrate on Huwwara.In brief: It was hot and dusty; the tractors were working, the whole area was without any shade, water was available for detainees from time to time.When we arrived a little after 14:00 at the line for entry to Nablus (i.e. the southern checkpoint) there were 15 detainees, and quite a long line of cars and of people. The soldiers were relatively new at the checkpoint and checked the Palestinians in a reasonable fashion, although with indifference and an unwillingness to be flexible. When the pressure built up and they themselves were tired and impatient, they struggled to discipline the Palestinians, with the usual shouts of “Back! Get back! If you don’t move back, I’ll stop checking!” I pointed out to a soldier that the only way to prevent the shoving was to let people through faster. And I offered the advice I’d heard on watches with Major O. : “Start calling them, at least the women, in threes. Check what’s essential and let them through.” He pretended not to hear, but started calling people two by two.The detainees sitting in the sun included a Palestinian-Canadian couple and an American-Palestinian family: an elderly father, his son and daughter-in-law and two small children. In both cases, they were tourists who had come to visit relatives in Nablus, left for a few days to visit relatives in Ramallah and were now returning Nablus to collect their belongings and fly home. They were not allowed back in: no permits are issued to holders of foreign passports (for their own safety), they were told. Despite the promises of the soldiers and then the District Co-ordinating Office (DCO) [the army section that handles civilian matters] that they’d be released in five or ten minutes, it took us an hour-and-a-half. 2nd.Lt. A., who answered the mobile phone on the other side of the checkpoint, said he was dealing with urgent problems and suggested I come to see him. I went over and found a young man trying to deal patiently with a range of problems: a little girl in the town in a house requisitioned by the army was sick and an ambulance had been called, but the soldiers over there wouldn’t let the ambulance approach…he was trying to coordinate this lack of coordination and I agreed with him that it was a more urgent problem, and stayed there so that my case wouldn’t be forgotten…An ambulance arrived with a month-old-baby with a blood disease on its way to Ramallah to see a doctor from Hadassah [in Jerusalem, Israel] who’d gone there specially to examine her. A. checked the ambulance, documents, packages, everything was in order, but before he could give permission for it to pass, there was a commotion in the line of applicants and he ran over to deal with it. The driver waited. The officer finished dealing with the line and I asked him to release the ambulance and then deal with the tourists. Suddenly a DCO jeep arrived, the officer jumped in and disappeared. He drove to the other side and released the detainees, but the ambulance was left behind…the doctor wouldn’t wait for too long in Ramallah and the baby must reach him… I ran to the soldiers and told them that I’d personally seen the ambulance being checked and I urged them to let it through. I finally succeeded….On the way back, on the southern side: an elderly woman came to the checkpoint, dressed festively in a traditional embroidered dress on her way with her nephew to a family wedding. She was allowed through, but not the boy, and she pleaded with me (in Arabic, which I don’t understand) to help her, and I was helpless. A young man came over from the men’s line, also a relative on his way to the same wedding, and suddenly I heard him conducting a friendly conversation in Russian with the soldier: the Palestinian was a doctor who’d studied in Moscow and the soldier was a Russian immigrant, kinsmen, one might say!!….The woman and her nephew were given special permission to go through.For the rest: it was all the usual stories. Conversations with Palestinians, the inability to expedite the release of detainees. Menuha made telephone calls to anyone who might help, Niki tried to help in the line, Anat held a sick baby so that her father could lift his shirt (maybe he’s carrying an explosive belt under the baby)! Shortly before 18:00 we left and returned to our own normal lives.
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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