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Huwwara, Beit Furiq 4/3/2004 Watchers: Dalya, Nora and Esther (a guest) The general state of madness that prevails throughout the country affected the weather too: two weeks ago we stood here in a torrential rainstorm and in the freezing cold, this time the weather gave us an unseasonal heat-wave that was almost a hamseen.We reached the Huwwara checkpoint at close to 13:00. There very few people around and the scene was as usual — Palestinians being called forward one at a time, soldiers checking and detaining young men (i.e. those between 15 and 35) until they got instructions on whether to let them through. This group of soldiers was a new one to us and we didn’t recognise them (they have been here just one week). They are not exactly overjoyed to see us, but they didn’t try to get rid of us either. Within a short time, the line waiting to come through the checkpoint had lengthened to several dozens, all crowding together in the heat and being continually pushed back by the soldiers, who wanted to keep their distance from the crowd, to have things “remain orderly”, and just simply to be unpleasant to the Palestinians. The line of cars and ambulances waiting to be checked also grew longer as did the number of detainees sittting — on the instructions of the soldiers — in the open under the burning sun.I noticed a young woman with a baby in her arms waiting for her husband, who was among the detained men, so I tried to have his case given some priority, without too much success. The men complained about the sun and the heat, but they were not prepared to accept the soldiers’ offers of water in army issue water-bottles (though they were prepared to accept water from a “civilian” bottle offered them by Dalya) That was their little protest, as if to say, “Don’t try and soothe your consciences by favours like this! Just let us go through!” The soldiers’ phone was not working properly, and the soldier who was trying to get permission to let them go began to get very up-tight, probably feeling a little threatened by the growing size of the restless group of detainees, and in the end he simply let all of them go. Dalya crossed to the other side of the checkpoint (the side that serves those coming from Nablus), where a crowd of several hundred stood in an endless line with only a small group of soldiers available for checking them. The call she made to th DCO elicited a promise that more soldiers would be sent to speed things up. After 15:00, we decided to go and check how the situation was at Beit Furiq, a sort of yes-and-no checkpoint: there is no proper physical structure, just soldiers standing in the middle of nowhere between Nablus and Beit Furiq. They were strict, far from pleased to see us, but for all that every now and then they bent the rules a little (“This is the last time…”) Off to the side was a long line of detainees who “deserve their punishment”, but as the time crept towards 17:00 the soldiers promised us that “we will let them all go soon” (we could not check whether this was done, because we moved off before that). I approached the army’s humanitarian hot-line to see if they could help persuade the soldiers to let through the car belonging to a dwarf who was crippled in both legs and could barely stand on his crutches. It was a truly heart-rending sight, but the soldiers were unmoved (and equally unmoved by my pleas). R., from th hot-line, was very pleasant and tried his best, but time passed and the dwarf eventually gave up and turned back in the direction of Beit Furiq in his car.
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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