Huwwara Za’atara Beit Furik
Huwwara Za’atara Beit Furik Burin, Wednesday 21.6.2006 PMObservers; Dalia P. Nitza G. Devorka A. (reporting)Natanya translating. Summary It seems that the lengthy detaining of Palestinians as punishment for “light crimes and transgressions” is becoming more and more a usual occurrence. And as usual the claim is made that it takes time to check their ids. The commander of this shift tried to brush us off with transparent lies about the reasons for these people being detained, for the way the checking of the ids was drawn out , the absence of any intervention by those of the District commissioner’s office,e tc. Without any shame the checking of males is still done by female soldiers even when male soldiers are standing right next to them and can do the same job but they are the ones who check the ids.15.10 Crossroads of Zatara. Little movement. 2 cars from Ramallah and 4 from the east.15.15 Crossroads of Burin. For the entire period there were about 100 people waiting in the shed. There are two usual lanes and the humanitarian opens and closes. People say that the wait is between 1 – 2 hours and sometimes 3. two detainees whose ids are being checked.16.50 – When it seemed that the checking of the ids was unending we asked where the DCO representative was. The commander pointed to a jeep which was standing in its permanent position ;but which was empty for a long time. He claimed that the DCO representative had been there the entire day and had gone to rest. After a while Sergeant Fuad returned to sit in the jeep. We asked him to check or hasten the checking of the detainees who had been joined by two more men. One of them was a student who had been detained simply because he had been annoyed while waiting in the lines and shouted. They said he had made a disturbance and the other two also had lost patience and tried to bypass the line.Sergeant F. in the jeep said that he was not allowed to talk to us but within 3 minutes if the student was not a suspicious character he would deal with the situation. We explained to him that no one had said that the student was suspicious but simply that he had caused a ruckus in the line. ( All this instead of his being the area and checking what was actually happening). After a few moments to our complete astonishment our hero drove off in his jeep without checking or trying to deal with the problem. We phoned the DCO to find out if he was there and were told that he had not arrived. We phoned the humanitarian centre, not for the first time on this shift. So as to tell them what was happening but they said that they could not interfere even though we had the impression that they were really trying to help. Before this the two men were freed and then the student.17.20 Beit Furik. The place is empty and the taxi drivers tell us that the checkpoint now closes at 7.00 or 7.30 and sometimes at 8.00. It all depends on the commander.17.40 -We went back to Hawarra. The undisciplined young man was still there and at 19.00 when we phoned he had not been freed.The entire shift , next to the two passages in the hut were a male and female soldier. She checking the men passing with the magnometre and he the ids. Once again we saw men baring their stomachs dafke to the woman soldier. We spoke to the commander saying that this was humiliating and that the man soldier should be doing the checking. He said that women could check if they used the magnormetre and that it was impossible that the male soldiers should do this all the time. They have to rest and he said that he himself was a religious man . Evidently he was basing this on the fact that if there is a “barrier” as with the Jews between male and female, in this case the magnormetre…there is no problem. In other words for three hours while we were there only the female soldiers checked the men.
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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