Beit Furik, Huwwara, Za'tara (Tapuah), Mon 4.8.08, Afternoon

Place:

Beit Furik

Za'tara (Tapuah)

Huwwara

Tags:

Women

Arbitrariness, e.g. an arbitrary decision

Hitches at checkpoints

DCO (District Coordination Offices)

Observers:

Riva B., Merav A., Noa P. - reporting

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Aug-4-2008

Afternoon

Translation: Hanna K.

14:30: Sha'ar Shomron: Where is the police? Where is the Border Police?

14:40: Opposite Ariel the development work continues.

Marda - The two gates info-icon are open, the western and the eastern one. Zeita Jama'in - still closed.

Za'tara: There are reservists at the CP.
From the west there is absolutely no queue.
From the north: four cars.
There are not vehicles detained at the CP itself.
The soldier guarding the lamp at the center of the square, stands at his position. On the other hand the hitch-hiking stops are without personal guards.

15:00: Beit Furik:
The upper parking lot is empty - almost no cars and no pedestrians. The coffee vendor says - truly, this is a good CP... There are rumors that the CP will soon be dismantled...
There are no entering pedestrians, and in the outgoing persons queue there is a serious sparsity.
The CP commander, whose rank is that of a lieutenant, comes up to us: Shalom, are you watch? May I help you? Ok, be here but try not to disturb. We promised.
A car is checked by presenting papers only. The next one - the driver is asked to get out of the vehicle and to open the trunk. The next car, an agricultural commercial vehicle - the drivers ID is checked against the list of wanted persons, when there was no match - he is released.
15:20 - We note that vehicles are checked in two lanes - for entering vehicles and for outgoing one simultaneously!

15:30 Huwwara:
There are seven detainees waiting for us in the in the solitary confinement cell.
According to one of them he is held there for five hours already, without water or food. He asked to drink water, in order to swallow psychiatric pills, but the soldiers were alarmed by him and confined him to the cell. According to T., from the DCO, not one of the prisoners was held there more than for the prescribed three hours.
Water is given to them following our explicit request. A few moments after our arrival the young man is released, together with two others. In their stead another young man is detained.
Thus the permitted inventory quota in the Huwwara detention cell is maintained - only five persons simultaneously.
The CP commander. Second Lieutenant E., who refused to talk to us when we turned to him, suddenly shouts: make yourselves scarce! Back, back!!
We complained about his behavior to the humanitarian center.
We: why? We didn't cross the line, so as no to create any provocation.
He: but she (pointing to Merav) is taking pictures! It is forbidden to take pictures!
It is allowed to take pictures...
He, in a rage: really? It is allowed to take pictures of soldiers? Since when??

An Israeli young man is detained because he entered Nablus, to work, without authorization.
Quickly two women join the others, a mother and a daughter, because they entered Nablus to visit relatives, they too without an authorization.
The police which is summoned to take care of them , is requested to take care of us too.
The policeman arrives, tries to say that it is forbidden for us to stay in an area which is defined by him as "closed military area", and that "it is forbidden for us to go and talk to the prisoners".
Merav explains that first of all the people we talk to are no prisoners - they are detainees, and that as a human rights organization it is our duty to go to the detainees to find out whether they received water, and why they are detained, etc.
The incident ends without results. The policeman releases the Israeli detainees, and from us he didn't even ask to see the IDs.

There is a visit of the Golani Battalion Commander (Lieutenant Colonel A.F.) accompanied by four adjutants - his company commanders... The CP commander complains to him about us, about our photographing.
The battalion commander F., says that he has no problem with our presence or with our picture taking....
We had a conversation with him and with the company commander of the company which mans Huwwara.
At the end of the conversation we got his telephone number, in order to solve problems directly with him, without having to turn to the Center as an intermediary (in the course of our conversation he got a phone call from the brigade concerning the behavior of E. the commander).
He says: "In the end, all of us want the same thing - that the CP be managed in the best and most humane manner possible.
We smiled. We have slightly different aspirations...

A woman comes up to us and tells this story: she is an inhabitant of Tira, her mother, aged 83, was run over by an Israeli arab citizen, in the village of Ramallah, a month ago. She hospitalized her in a private hospital and that was that. The mother is in a serious medical condition which deteriorates from day to day. Since her release she is hospitalized in the Rafidiya hospital in Nablus and her treatment is bad. She wants to transfer her to an Israeli hospital but this is too expensive, and as there is no file at the Israeli police - it is impossible to force the insurance company of the injuring driver to pay for the hospitalization. She begs for help.
The quick queue gets mixed under the shed, women and men together.
The passage is blocked by a plastic barrier and an iron grille on top of that.
The x-ray vehicle is still not working.
There is no dog trainer or dog.
The red barrier moved since last week and is now positioned without a flag flying over it, in order to delay the queue of cars leaving Nablus.

A car is checked - its passengers are waiting in the sun for eight long minutes until they are allowed to enter it again and go on their way.

17:20 - The Samaria CP:
There are five detainees. One of them who speaks Hebrew well, tells us that they were detained at seven in the morning by the Rosh Ha-Ayin police, where they were held until they were brought to the CP an hour ago. According to the CP commander (with the rank of sergeant) only half an hour passed since they arrived.
The CP commander wants to know "how is one accepted to do your kind of work?" We explained that this is no work, it is volunteer work, and that one has to be - that's how it is - a woman... he repeats his question, probably in order to make us feel bad regarding ourselves, so what, I cannot be accepted by you?
Ten minutes after our arrival everybody was released. They thank us in many languages: Arabic, Hebrew, English, French, Russian...

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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