'Awarta, 'Azzun, Eliyahu Crossing, Habla, Huwwara, Madama, Za'tara (Tapuah)

Place:

'Awarta

Za'tara (Tapuah)

Huwwara

'Azzun

Eliyahu Crossing

Habla

Madama

Observers:

Carol Cook, Petahya Akfa, Riva Bachrach (reporting), Nadim (driving)

Jul-23-2015

Afternoon

Agricultural Gate Habla, the village of Madama, the story of the well….. Awarta, Beit Furiq, and again Huwwara….

13:50 Agricultural Gate Habla ( from 13:15 to 14:15 only)

A young soldier helped a young mother, who went with a baby info-icon girl in her arms to present her papers, to bring her the baby carriage. I couldn't help but thank him for that and for his ability to remain human under these conditions.

14:05 The Eliyahu Passage

There is nothing to report. It looked abandoned.

At the entrance to ‘Azzun we saw a booth with soldiers.

14:50 The village of Madama: a meeting at the municipality, and after that the "well" saga

This is a story of occurrences during about 9 months, since the inhabitants of the illegal settlement Yitzhar came down from the hill and clogged the well. Since then the inhabitants of Madama haven’t succeeded in advancing the restoration of the well. It is impossible to do so without the protection of the army because of the wild temperament of the people of Yitzhar. They called the Palestinian DCO who are supposed to talk to the Israeli DCO, but the Israeli DCO didn't reply to their phone calls until now!

We called the "humanitarian center" of Nablus. We talked with a soldier/officer named Dayan. The commander of the DCO wasn't there. We explained that without the protection of the army the well cannot be rehabilitated (the settlers from Yitzhar…) and that for some reason the matter isn’t progressing, although there are some organisations that wish to help in this material matter! The superior office wasn't present at the center at that moment, and according to Dayan he was present at an event "of an attempt of stabbing a woman soldier" near the Nablus regiment. At the moment all of the DCO are busy with this, including the officer Arbel. He promised us that when officer Arbel contacts him, he himself will contact us via the Machsom Watch telephone number. We were not unduly surprised when we didn’t receive a call from anybody at DCO Nablus, not from Dayan with whom we talked and of course not from officer Arbel who was supposed to call us, as we of course did not have his phone number.

We decided to drive to the regiment headquarters at the Awarta region. On our way we went on foot to the Huwwara CP and saw that it was open for the passage of cars and pedestrians without checking. There was a soldier at the observation Tower.

On our way to Awarta we saw quite a number of military jeeps in the region and they seemed to be looking for suspects. At the grocery of Awarta we were told that the army entered Nablus at the northern hill. They arrested somebody there and one Palestinian was wounded. At the Awarta grocery they told us that the army passes there as a matter of routine! We heard from people on the way that there are problems at Beit Furiq, and we immediately drove there; there were many soldiers in military vehicles.

15:55 – We observed two jeeps at the entrance to Itamar. We tried to reach Beit Furiq but the army blocked the road and made it impossible to drive there. There were many Palestinian cars, probably on their way home, but they were not allowed to drive. We were told that in one of the vehicles there was a sick woman who had returned from a doctor's visit, and she too was not allowed to pass. The soldiers refused to talk to us.

We decided to return to Huwwara. An hour or less earlier the Huwwara CP was empty, now there were a lot of military vehicles entering Nablus. At the Yitzhar intersection, in the direction of Huwwara, we observed a private car, probably of the Shabak (the General Security Service).

At Huwwara we heard from people, who heard from friends using cell phones that the army was still in Nablus. They reported on one wounded Palestinian and one detained. At Huwwara too there were military vehicles, an exceptional event.

17:10 Tapuah Intersection. There was one soldier in the watch tower and another stood in the booth.

To sum up: This was a very frustrating shift as regards the events and the feeling of helplessness to help or to intervene. It seems to us that we – MachsomWatch – should interest the media in what goes on at Madama and the well opposite Yitzhar, and also in the fact that till now we never saw (soldiers in vehicles…) in the villages and on the roads! The question also arises whether the IDF is interested in arousing unrest and turmoil in regions which till now were more or less calm, in spite of the wrongs of the occupation?

Location Description

'Azzun

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Azoun (updated February 2019)

A Palestinian town situated in Area B (under civil Palestinian control and Israeli security control),

on road 5 between Nablus and Qalqiliya, east of Nabi Elias village. The inhabitants are allowed to construct and improve infrastructures. The Separation Fence has confiscated lands belonging to the town's people. In 2018 olive tree groves owned by one of its inhabitants were confiscated for the sake of paving a road to bypass Nabi Elias. Azoun population numbers 13,000, its economic state dire. Its infrastructures are poor, neglect and poverty rampant. In the meantime, the town council has completed paving an internal road for the inhabitants' welfare.

Because of its proximity to the Jewish settler-colony of Karnei Shomron and its outposts, the town suffers the intense presence of the Israeli army, especially at nighttime: soldiers enter homes, arrest suspects, trash the house and sometimes ruin it, as they do in numerous places in the West Bank. At times a checkpoint closes the entrance to the town, so no one can come in or get out.

Madama

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Madama village

This village is situated in the Nablus district, about 5 kilometers south of the city of Nablus, at an altitude of 517 meters above sea level. Madama was founded 400 years ago and its villagers originate from the Arabian Peninsula. It numbered 1,728 inhabitants in 2007. 62% of the village area is categorized as Area B, and 38% as Area C.

Over the years, hundreds of dunams have been robbed of the village for the purpose of building settler-colonies, army bases, and paving roads:139 dunams were sequestered to found settler-colony Yitzhar south of the village, and the land was also confiscated for paving road 60. The road and its buffer zone (75 meters on each side) lined by barbed wire fences separate the village’s farmlands to the north and the village farmers are denied access to tend them. The road also separates Madama and Bourin, two villages with close neighborly ties, and now not able to access the road directly.

The settler-colony Yitzhar has become a daily threat to the village. The settler-colonists planted trees in fenced-in groves, steal crops, burn, uproot and vandalize Palestinians’ trees, and harm both holy sites and property. They also attack the Palestinian landowners in order to terrorize them and prevent them from accessing their lands.

For further information: http://vprofile.arij.org/nablus/pdfs/vprofile/Madama_vp_en.pdf

Za'tara (Tapuah) Checkpoint

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Za'atara is an internal checkpoint in the heart of the West Bank, at the intersection of Road 60 and Road 505 (Trans-Samaria), east of the Tapuach settlement.
This checkpoint is the "border" marked by the IDF between the north and south of the West Bank, in accordance with the policy of separation between the two parts of the West Bank that has been in place since December 2005.

At the Za'atara checkpoint, there are separate routes for Israelis and Palestinians. In the route for Israelis, there are no inspections and the route for Palestinians inspects. The queue lengthens and shortens suits.

The checkpoint is open 24 hours a day. The checkpoint is partially staffed and the people who pass through it are checked at random.

Sep-28-2023

Shoshi Anbar

Za'atra (Tapuah Intersection). Signs

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Eliyahu Crossing

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This checkpoint, also known as the Fruit Crossing, is one of the main checkpoints between Israel and the West Bank.
It is located on Route 55 between Alfei Menashe and the turn to Qalqilya and Tzufin, more than 4 km east of the Green Line, in the separation fence, which separates Qalqilya from its lands to the south, thus leaving Alfei Menashe West of the fence - the Seam Zone.
This checkpoint, a few kilometers across the Green Line, is intended for "Israeli settlement in the West Bank and the population of the Seam Zone."
It is managed by a civil company. Palestinians with a special permit for their lands in the seam area info-icon are also allowed to pass through it, on foot, and sometimes by car.

Huwwara - the checkpoint and the township

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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 info-icon 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 today is free, but there is still a military presence in the guard tower and vehicle inspections are done from time to time.

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 info-icon 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)

Feb-29-2024

Nina Seba

Huwara checkpoint - the gate is closed

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