Awarta, Beit Furik, Burin (Yitzhar), Huwwara, Za'tara (Tapuah), Mon 24.3.08, Afternoon

Place:

'Awarta

Beit Furik

Za'tara (Tapuah)

Huwwara

Burin (Yitzhar)

Tags:

Slow passage

Detainees

Arbitrariness, e.g. an arbitrary decision

Walls and Blockades

Observers:

Macky S. and Riva B.

Mar-24-2008

Afternoon

Natanya translating.

13.25 Sha'ar Shomron.
Blue police and 5-6 police vehicles. Zeita is still under punishment and the village is closed.

Za'tara with two checking booths and pleasant reservists and a military policeman who astound us by offering us cold water. Cars going into Nablus are checked minimally according to the commander.

13.55 Beita is blocked. This is the story.

1. Micky F. phoned to ask us to check what was happening there.

2. When we got to Za'tara the commander asked what was happening and he said that it was to stop Israelis (occasional?) entering. On Saturday there had been problems between the Palestinian police and some other groups. Hana B. also reported this statement. .

3. The driver of a truck with vegetables spoke to us next to the barbed wire which blocks the entrance. Said that all the entrances were blocked and also that of Akraba and a makeshift road has been opened south of the village. He and other Palestinians with whom we spoke said that there had not been then and now Palestinian police in Beita. There had been however in Huwwara village. Many Palestinians who passed spoke and complained. One said that he was taking people for dialysis in Nablus and yesterday they had not been treated. The market is working somehow but in a very small way. The driver of a wholesale truck of vegetables whom we met at the end of our shift said that the previous day all the bananas in his car had rotted and he had lost 8000 shekel.

4. Another version of the story was that there had been a competition between the marketplace in Nablus and the market in Beita and this causes problems.

14.10 We phoned the humanitarian centre to check the story. Until we left they did not give us an answer and when we phoned now and again to find out we were told that the captain was checking the situation with the army units.

14.20 We telephoned Noah P. to try to phone Members of Parliament and to ask if it is really to stop the occasional Israeli going in and if that is a reason to keep a whole village under siege. It is not clear where the Palestinian police were or what caused the army to decide two days ago!!!! to close the roads leading to Beita with barbed wire and to leave it so. But it is clear that the inhabitants of the village and the surroundings are suffering. There are 10,000 people in Beita and the market in of the most important in the area.

14.35 Huwwara CP.
2 young detainees whom the commander says are wanted by the GSS for whose answer he is waiting. 3 checking posts are working. Students said they waited 10-30 minutes. Few cars which pass quickly. Shoes squeak and have to be taken off and put on again. 3 times this happens and he can still smile at us when he passes at last.

At 15.15 Still no answer from the GSS.

At Beit Furik
10 cars have been waiting they say for more than two hours and this included a doctor whose patients are waiting in Nablus and another 10 cars at the exit. The commander will not speak to us it seems because we spoke to the driver. We phone the centre to remind them about Beita and to send a representative of the DCO because of the long line. Pedestrains also complain of a wait of an hour and one grumbles to the clerk of the humanitarian centre. The x-ray device is not working and the goods are checked on the road. Soldiers say that that way the checking is faster. Some minutes after our phone call and maybe also because of our presence the line of cars decreases.

16.05 Opposite Yitamar is a Hummer and two soldiers.
At Awarta 5 cars and the parking area is pretty empty.
Huwwara...the detainees info-icon have been freed.
Burin is empty.
Za'tara 38 cars in both directions.

Location Description

Checkpoint Beit Furik

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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)

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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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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Burin (Yitzhar)

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Burin

This is a Palestinian village in the Nablus governorate, a little south of Nablus, on the main road passing through the West Bank. The settlements: Yitzhar and Har Bracha, settled in locations that surrounded the village, placed fences so it is cut off the main road.

There are around 4000 inhabitants. Most of them are engaged in agriculture and pasture, although many graduates of the two secondary schools continue to study at the university. Academic positions are hardly available, they find work as builderd, or leave for the Gulf countries.

The village lands were appropriated several times for the establishment of Israeli settlements and military bases, and as a result, Burin's land and water resources dwindled. lSince 1982, more than 2,000 dunams of village land have been declared "state land" and then transferred to Har Bracha settlement.

Over the past few years and more so since 2017, the villagers have been terrorized by the residents of Yitzhar and Har Bracha, the Givat Ronen outpost and others.
Despite the close proximity of soldiers to an IDF base close to one of the village's schools, residents are suffering from numerous stone-throwing events, vehicle and fire arson, also reported in the press.

In 2023, the prevention of the olive harvest in the village plot was more violent than ever. Soldiers and settlers walked with drawn weapons between the houses of the village and demanded that people stop harvesting in the village itself and in the private plots outside the village. The settlers from Yitzhar and Giv'at Roned raided the olive groves and stole crops. 300 olive trees belonging to the residents of Burin, near Yitzhar, were uprooted. The loss of livelihood from the olives causes long-term economic damage to the farmers' families, bringing them to the point of starvation.

(updated for November 2023)