Hywwara
Huwwara South Tuesday 22 February 2005 Watchers: Tal A., Nurit V., Lirit L., Yael P., Rachel A., reporting: Ettie P. Summary: The shift started quietly and became painful and frustrating.8.15 a.m.Four soldiers including the commanding officer Tsachi. No-one held and no queue.A car with three Palestinians: One has a Palestinian I.D. card and is a regular with a pass in his car, the other two have Israeli I.D. cards – Jerusalemites. They claim that they have a permanent arrangement with the D.C.O. and they come through regularly. The representative of the D.C.O. Oleg, checks and informs them that they do not have such an arrangement with the D.C.O.. It appears that one of them works for the Arab Bank and he is an advisor with the C.H.F. (an American financial organisation which gives aid for building in the territories) and he shows a document of theirs but Oleg argues that it is a pass to enter the office and not an employee’s pass. In fact, he wants to go to Nablus as an employee of the Palestinian Telephone Company, Paltel, and needs to be there for just half an hour. He did not know that he needed to approach the Officer of Public Applications to get a pass to enter Nablus and tries to get Oleg to turn a blind eye, as he puts it. Oleg does not agree and I contact the D.C.O. to try my luck. Assaf tells me that he can try and get him a pass but it will take a good few hours and it is not certain that it will be ready today. They are not sure if they should stay and once again try Oleg but in the end the one with the Palestinian I.D. card goes through and the others return to Jerusalem.Tsachi explains that the carousels are back in service but he does not use them unless it rains and they need shelter.Meanwhile from time to time the queue grows but the soldiers deal with it quickly.Three men: one has an Irish passport, a lecturer at the University of Beit Lechem, the second has an Italian passport and the third a Palestinian accompanying them, they want to enter Nablus. Now I become aware of a possibility which can help in a case like this, as Oleg from the D.C.O. explains. If a foreign passport holder knows someone who holds a post in a recognised international organisation he can contact him and the post holder can contact the D.C.O., speak specific officer who is responsible for foreign passports, and vouch for him in the name of the organisation. Thus he can enter without prior notice. The Irishman contacts a friend in the U.N. and waits for the pass to be sent to the road block.A Palestinian approaches us and asks for help: a friend of his, an Israeli Arab, the owner of a truck from Tamra, was arrested yesterday by the Huwwara police when he wanted to go to a village in the direction of Beit Furik. The police took him and the keys of his car and his wife who was with him in the car does not know where he or the car is. I telephone the police and am passed from place to place: investigations, remand and again investigations and then the Ariel Police duty officer: no-one knows anything – in the end I give his full name to the remand office and it is clear that he is not there. It is beginning to sound Kafkaesque and I start to phone and get this question from the police: are you sure it is not the army who took him? Ask the army. I try to remind him that we are talking about an Israeli citizen like him or like me and the army cannot arrest him, but it seems that the policeman is unable to differentiate between Arabs – one law for them all. I approach the officer, 2nd lieutenant Ariel, and emphasise the seriousness of the phenomenon of a citizen who disappears after the police have taken him and that his wife is hysterical and crying on the phone. He speaks to the police on his MIRS phone and the policewoman asks for details which he gives her and she promises to get back to him.Later I asked Tami Gross who was on the afternoon shift to talk to him and he told her that the man was in the Yiftach police station and his wife knows he is there. I passed the issue on to Ofra Katz of Machsomwatch to monitor it.Ettie Paz
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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Jerusalem
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The places in East Jerusalem which are visited routinely by MachsomWatch women are Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah. During the month of Ramadan, also the Old City and its environs are monitored.
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