Za’atara Beit Furik Awarta Huwwara
Za’atara Beit Furik Awwarta Huwwara; Friday, Sept. 7, AM Present: Orit D., Nili F., Ofra T. (Reporting)Translation: Rachel B.8:30 Za’atara JunctionA line of 4 cars, mostly taxis. Two positions are open.8:35 Yitzhar JunctionThe checkpoints in both directions are not operating.9:00 Beit Furik CheckpointThere are more cars than the usual for a Friday. Most of the time, a car waits at the exit from the village until the soldier who conducts the check (who is eating and smoking at the same time) is ready to let it through.The soldier checking the cars asks one of the drivers being checked for a light for his cigarette. Would it be conceivable for a Palestinian to ask for a light from the soldiers checking them? It would be interesting to see the reaction to that…Only a few pedestrians want to go into Nablus… so it makes sense that the female soldier on duty complains of being bored.9:15 Awwarta CheckpointAs usual on Friday, the checkpoint is operated by a few soldiers but there is almost no traffic of goods going through. A Palestinian whom we know from before tells the following about lost ID cards: The ID cards disappeared from the box where the Palestinian passing through the checkpoint have to place them in the morning when they come to work. His ID card was among those lost. It’s true that he was issued a new ID card, but, of course, he had to pay 190 shekel for it. The soldiers require that the ID cards be placed in the box but don’t seem to hold themselves responsible for them getting lost.He also tells us abut the bureaucratic maze that a truck driver must navigate in order to get a permit to take his truck to a garage in Nablus for check up or repair.9:50 Huwwara Checkpoint There is one detainee in the lockup unit. We immediately go to investigate who he is and why he has been detained. A soldier crassly attacks us, along with another soldier and tries to shoo us away and prevent us from talking to the detainee. We receive the usual repertoire {of insults} and additional “treats.” “You are driving me nuts right at the start of the morning… You are not allowed to stand here, only behind the white line… We are going to call the police, you are interfering… It’s non of your business why he is detained, this is my business, I rule here” all of this accompanied by yelling “Sabbaba, Yalla, get out of here now… Your sons are probably pencil-pushers (jobnikim) in the Army Administrative Offices (the Kiryah in Tel Aviv)… In two weeks I am going to fight in Syria” etc., etc. When we ask to speak to the commander we are told he is sleeping.The detainee manages to tell us that he is a coffee peddler in the parking lot and he has been held since 7:30 AM and only his son – a child – has remained at his coffee stand. In other words, he is being punished for selling coffee to passers-by. Later on, Y., the commander of the checkpoint who, of course, was not asleep, explains to us that the detainee is a criminal because Israeli law, which {he claims} applies here (“because Nablus is also ours, the whole country {i.e. West Bank} is ours”) says that you cannot sell coffee here. “If you put up a coffee stand on Diznegoff Street in Tel Aviv, would they let you?” At a coffee stand, he claims, many Palestinians can gather and that is not good; there have already been times when they beat up the soldiers… The response we get to our request to free {the detainee} because it is forbidden to hold someone for over 3 hours merely for punitive reasons is: “I told him {he would be detained for} three hours and I won’t release him sooner.”We called the I.D.F. Humanitarian Center and they promised to come back with a response, but they did not call back. We called a second time and they said that the commander of the checkpoint told them that the detainee is going to be arrested. We assured them that the commander told us that he will be freed after 3 hours and that if he then continues to sell coffee he will be detained for three hours again and that there is, in fact, no intention of actually arresting him. They promised to investigate and get back to us but they did not.10:30 -After 3 hours they released him. The punishment of our coffee seller ended. Another Palestinian if taken in for a thorough check and is released after being checked.A foreigner, from Germany, wants to enter Nablus win a car with a yellow Israeli license plate that says “GREEN PEACE.” The checkpoint commander prevents him from entering with that car and explains to him that is dangerous for him. The German man decides to cancel his plan to go to Nablus, according to him, in order to avoid a confrontation.11:15 Za’atara CheckpointThere are only 2 cars present.
Beit Furik checkpoint
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One of the three internal checkpoints that closed on the city of Nablus - Beit Furik to the east, Hawara to the south, Beit Iba to the west. The checkpoint is located at the junction of Roads 557 (an apartheid road that was forbidden for Palestinians), leading to the Itamar and Alon Morea settlements and Road 5487. The checkpoint was established in 2001 for pedestrians and vehicles; The opening hours were short and the transition was slow and very problematic.Allegedly, the checkpoint is intended to monitor the movement to and from Nablus of the residents of Beit Furik and Beit Dajan, being the only opening outside their villages. Since May 2009 the checkpoint is open 24 hours a day, the military presence is limited, vehicles can pass through it without inspections, except for random inspections. (Updated April 2010)
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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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