Nablus
The commander of the Huwwara side is
Motti Luzon, a soldier remembered by all of us from previous
experiences as aggressive, rude, condescending and racist….
Openly dislikes us as well…
Only those who have Nablus written as their residence pass
Nablus-wise (at Beit Furik we were told that one cannot pass to
Nablus), all others cannot.. unless…
A woman with her 10 years old boy on their way to the hospital
because the boy’s eye was injured, which could be seen with a naked
eye by all, was refused. But she just went on standing, according
to her since 6 a.m. Time passed. Again she was told that she won’t
pass, and finally she was told by a different soldier that she can
go to Burrin, get a referral there, and then will be allowed to
pass. Then one of the taxi drivers went over to the soldier in the
booth (who previously refused to let the woman pass) with a bottle
of coca cola, and food, talked to him for a while, then called her,
and she went there, a few minutes later she passed.
Tami who had gone to the other side sometime before called to tell
us that a child, 12 years old, was handcuffed (his right hand to
his left knee), squeezed in to the booth and cannot move. He was
one of the children working around the checkpoint.
They were a few versions as to what he had done, escalating as time
passed. One being that he did things he shouldn’t have, another
that he tried to steal the soldiers’ field radio… that once he
tried to hit a soldier with an iron rod…. The soldier ‘explained’
that he had already tried to warn the child and scare him off: ‘I
am not one of those who hit children, so what could I have done?’,
he rationalized the scene.
S, upset, said this cannot be done, that this mustn’t be done. The
officer while talking on his field radio told her ‘You are worse
than them’, and over his field radio someone could be heard saying
‘Throw away these leftists. Finally S thought it would be best to
leave, hoping they would be more likely to release the child when
they are not watched, which worked.
We were told that the officer had called the police because as he
explained, S raised her voice, obstructing his ‘work’. We realized
the actuality of what seemed too childish and absurd to be true
when Motti ordered a Palestinian truck to block S’s car so she
won’t be able to leave had she wanted to.
We did in fact try to, but when S tried to drive away Motti threw,
in front of her car wheels, a set of spikes. So she stopped, but
told him he had no right, and moved them away, then made another
attempt to drive, and he threw this thing in front of her wheels
again. This time she didn’t stop in time and drove over them. Right
then the police arrived. After hearing us he went over to hear the
officer’s version, and came back hinting that the officer seemed
quite confused and couldn’t justify his rage or why he had ordered
the police to come, and asked whether we could all forget about it.
As for the use of force to stop S from driving, the policeman
agreed that the soldiers had no right or authority to stop us, and
promised to inform them of their misconception as to their rights
upon citizens. He asked whether S wanted to file a counter
complaint against them, and as the tires seemed intact at the time
she didn’t. However when she arrived home she saw they were in fact
punctured.
Huwwara
See all reports for this place-
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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