Beit Furik, Burin (Yitzhar), Huwwara, Za'tara (Tapuah), Mon 23.2.09, Afternoon

Place:

Beit Furik

Za'tara (Tapuah)

Huwwara

Burin (Yitzhar)

Tags:

Observers:

Riva B. Nurit I. (photographing), Nur B.

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Feb-23-2009

Afternoon

Natanya translating.

13.20 Sha'ar Shomron. We entered Palestinian.

13.50 Za'tara (Tapuach).
One car is detained at the side of cars coming from the west, two male passengers.
At the car lane which came from the north are 5 cars. Cars go through without being checked at a motion of a hand from the soldier.

14.10 Burin.
A border police jeep at the side of the road leading to the village of Huwwara. Cars are not stopped.

14.15 A new checkpoint on the apartheid road leading to Beit Furik, at the crossroads leading to the village of Awarta. Two cement blocks closes the passage and two soldiers check IDs and permits of cars coming from Nablus. At least 8 cars, we cannot see more. The soldiers say that the new checkpoint at Awarta is in place of that of Beit Furik.

14.20 Beit Furik.
The checkpoint is open to traffic. A soldier stands at the post where the pedestrians pass. He can be seen and the drivers hesitate. One's heart breaks to see them. They stop next to him so as to be sure that the passage is without checking, maybe once again the orders have changed. A flock of sheep cross the checkpoint and go through the remains of the checkpoint which was here which remind the people that the checkpoint may be opened again. They should hesitate before going through this passage.

14.40 Huwwara.
At the new checkpoint which has been built in such a way that in a second it can close and imprison all those standing inside it are 3 checking areas and an extra one. The soldiers call it the "humanitarian".
A long line of pedestrians. The men pass the checkpoint, others come and the line is never ending. There is a wait of about an hour according to three men and also by our own reckoning.
Riva measured 50 minutes. The men pass under the x-ray and do the known dance which we had already forgotten. Also the Palestinians seem less trained. They lift their shirts, sometimes if they are fat the undershirt too, turn on the place, then they turn down a sock and show their right ankle and the left. Then they go to the post and show their IDs. At the other side of the checkpoint they dress again and put on their watches.
The female policewomen bark ( just so) through the loudspeaker...."Back. Lift your shirt. All the metal."
The cars at the entrance to Nablus are not checked but at the exit is a terrible traffic jam of which the end cannot be seen. IDs and permits are given to the soldier. There is no x-ray machine.
A young man of 24, a taxi driver, says that yesterday at 19.30 at the checkpoint of the village of Beita he was stopped by border police who did not give him back his driving license . We took his details and made a connection between him and I. of the DCO.
Taxi drivers went to the turnstile to wait for passengers and also to speak to us on the path at the entrance to Nablus. One could feel how they feared to stand there. Some said that they had been put into the isolation because they had stood there. They stood next to us but watched the soldiers the whole time.
So as to save people the tiring exit from Nablus through the checkpoint, people, probably family members, pass parcels over the turnstile. So it seems they keep up some connection between families.
In one case one of the soldiers saw the parcel being passes over and demanded that it be opened. There were medicines inside.

16.50 Za'tara (Tapuach). 6 cars from the north and none from the west.

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)