Madama - Soldiers in the streets, breaking into houses

Place:

'Azzun

Beit Furik

Burin (Yitzhar)

Huwwara

Madama

Tags:

Swords of Iron War

Violence

Observers:

Carol Cook and Fathiya Akfa (report and photos), Translation: Danah Ezekiel

Leave this field blank

Jan-10-2024

Afternoon

13:15 Azzun - The entrances to Azzun are closed. Soldiers in the tower near the entrance and others walking around the area.

At the entrance to al-Funduq both positions are manned.

13:40 Sura checkpoint is closed. Two positions of soldiers at the turn from the Jit junction to the Yitzhar Hawara road. There were no Palestinian vehicles on the road.

Hawara, most of the shops are closed except for 3 auto repair shops and some grocery stores. The main road is empty.

We went to the Hawara checkpoint. There were a lot of soldiers walking around the square in front of the checkpoint, so we couldn't even get close to the checkpoint.

We continued to Beit Furik. On the way, the Awarta checkpoint was open. We couldn't get close here either. As soon as they saw that our vehicle had stopped on the road, they called us to leave.

Beit Furik checkpoint is open. Long convoys of vehicles in both directions.

Burin - We were surprised to see a convoy of vehicles on the road inside Burin. It turns out that people are going to Nablus and coming back using a long dirt road that goes through Burin and through Madama.

15:30 Madama - We went to Madama to check what happened on Friday 5.1. A group of soldiers arrived at the village on foot. The soldiers brutally entered several houses. They went up to one of the houses which was on the second floor. The house was closed. The owners were at work. The owner of the barbershop that is under the house spoke to the soldiers and told them that the owners of the house were at work. The soldiers pushed him and continued. They broke down the front door, entered, opened the cupboards, took out and threw the contents around, creating real chaos.

Madama - soldiers broke the front door to enter the house

Photo:

Fathiya Akfa

Madama - soldiers opened cupboards and took out contents

Photo:

Fathiya Akfa

Madama - after the soldiers' search

Photo:

Fathiya Akfa

In another house, they locked up the women who were in the house and women soldiers stripped them. When they left, they threw smoke grenades and gas grenades in the middle of the road and shut the worshipers in the mosque.

Madama - soldiers in the village streets

Photo:

Fathiya Akfa

At 16:00, when we went down to the street, a group of 10 soldiers walked down the street swaggeringly. A soldier who went last approached our driver and demanded that he turn off the car and the phone. We stood some distance away and saw that all the soldiers were kneeling behind a truck parked on the side of the road and the guns were drawn and aimed.

The driver was very afraid that his car would be confiscated, so we left. I keep trying to call him to find out what happened after we left but there’s no answer.

Close to the second entrance of Madama on the Yitzhar road near the bridge, (an entrance that had been closed for a long time) we saw a convoy of vehicles leaving Nablus through the village of Tell and a group of soldiers bringing them back on their tracks.

16:30 On the way to the bus stop near the Kedumim settlement, we saw about 10 young Palestinians lying handcuffed with their faces on the ground.

Location Description

'Azzun

See all reports for this place

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.

Checkpoint Beit Furik

See all reports for this place

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)

Madama

See all reports for this place

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

Huwwara - the checkpoint and the township

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 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

View the full album

Burin (Yitzhar)

See all reports for this place

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)