Beit Furik, Burin (Yitzhar), Habla, Huwwara, Za'tara (Tapuah)

Place:

Beit Furik

Burin (Yitzhar)

Habla

Huwwara

Za'tara (Tapuah)

Observers:

Esti Weingarten and Fathiya (Reporting); Translator: Hanna K.

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Nov-9-2017

Afternoon

13:20 - Habla – All it quiet, the soldiers are bored, there are almost no people.

14:00 - Jit intersection – the post is manned.

14:20 – Burin – the post near the school is manned. On the way we visited Doha who picked olives in a plot near the main road at Burin. Marianna from Italy and Morsy from Holland came to her help.

Morsy told us that on Saturday 4.9 he had gone to help picking olives in a plot between Burin and Huwwara. The “hill lads” from Yitzhar had descended on them and had begun throwing stones at them and cursing them, disturbing them in their work. The Palestinians, owners of the plot, had tried to push them back. In the meantime a border police jeep had arrived. Two policemen had descended from it and had turned to Marianna and Morsey and asked them to leave the plot as it was forbidden for them to be there. Morsy had talked with them quietly and had told them: Instead of abusing these people stop these youngsters. The policemen had seemed ashamed and had tried to talk with the settlers and convince them to leave the place.

14:45 – Huwwara. The CP wasn’t manned but there was a horrible traffic jam near the square.

15:00 – Beit Furik –At the entrance to the village there was a military jeep. We stopped at the side of the road, vis a vis to see what was happening. In the meantime four additional jeeps and a tender arrived and entered the village. The first jeep remained behind. Then another jeep arrived and stopped in front of us. A soldier descended from it, came to us and asked politely whether we needed help. We asked what was happening and why the soldiers entered the village. He said that there were youngsters creating havoc, throwing stones, burning tires near the Itamar settlement, from the direction of the village. He began asking who were were and what our mission was. We answered that we were against the occupation and he asked where we lived. Esti said she was from Hertzliya and I said from Tira. To our surprise he asked a very embarrassing question – he told Esti and you don’t live in an occupied territory? Hertzliya is also occupied territory, it was occupied in 48, you too should leave your home and rturn it to the Palestinians. And to me he said you live in a Palestinian village as if you were an occupier. When I told him that I was from a family of refugees which had been expelled from its village in 48 he was shocked. And then suddenly he began asking questions, why we had left and who had expelled us, and a long conversation ensued. He came to the conclusion that the whole of the State of Israel was occupied territory.

He asked us to leave as it was dangerous. I insisted that was going to enter the village to check what was happening there. The driver refused to enter the village as he was afraid. I asked the people and they just began laughing. They said the distance the youngsters have to walk to the settlement was 6 Kms and this also involved going up a mountain.

In the meantime the jeeps returned and left.

16:40 – Za’tara intersection – manned.

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)