Tag: Huwwara

Settlers set fire to Huwwara prayer hall

3 May 2011 | Ma’an News

Ultra-orthodox Jewish Israeli settlers raided the northern west Bank town of Huwwara in the early hours of Tuesday morning and according to residents set fire a prayer hall in the local school.

Ghassan Daghlas, PA official charged with monitoring settler activity in the district, said the prayer hall in Huwwara sustained material damages due to the fire.

Locals reported the incident after hundreds of settlers entered the northern West Bank city of Nablus heading to Joseph’s Tomb for prayer.

According to Israeli news site Ynet, the event was a vigil for a settler who had been shot by Palestinian police in April, when he and a group of 30 others attempted to sneak into the shrine without coordination with the military or Palestinian police.

“The service was duly coordinated with the IDF,” the news site noted, adding that when the service completed and soldiers prepared to escort the group back to their settlements, “several dozens of youths tried to barricade themselves in the compound, but were evicted by the troops.”

Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP a small group of Israelis were arrested on Tuesday near the contested Joseph’s Tomb site.

“We arrested more than a dozen Jewish worshipers who were at Joseph’s Tomb without authorization,” Rosenfeld said.

The group appeared to be extremists who arrived at the tomb shortly after an authorized group of Jewish worshipers prayed there.

The arrival of the smaller group provoked clashes with Palestinian youths, who throw stones at their cars, an AFP photographer at the scene said.

The town is located south of Nablus and Joseph’s Tomb, on the main road connecting the northern and central West Bank. The town has often been the focus of settler attacks and vandalism.

Israeli and Palestinian liaison officials visited the site of the arson and initiated an investigation, sources said.

Officials said they feared further settler attacks against Palestinians, as tensions flare amid a possible unity agreement between rival political parties Fatah and Hamas. The move would reunify Palestinians under a single government, with the hopes that a single voice would be a diplomatic asset when leaders head to the UN in September to seek recognition of statehood.

Tensions in the northern West Bank were particularly high two weeks ago when settlers snuck into the area of Joseph’s Tomb.

Palestinian police said they fired warning shots to disperse the group, which responded by blowing past a PA checkpoint. In the exchange of fire, one settler was killed.

Settler communities labeled the incident a “terrorist attack.”

Ten children arrested in Hares

International Solidarity Movement

14 May 2010

Between 1 and 6 a.m. Thursday morning, 10 boys under the ago of eighteen were arrested from their homes in the village of Hares, Salift region. The boys, entirely innocent, were taken to Huwarra detention center where they are now being held. A massive number of soldiers were involved in the raid. They arrived in the village in three large “Man’ trucks, three smaller trucks and several army jeeps.

Earlier in the week, soldiers built a gate at the entrance to Hares. If closed, the gate traps many villages inside. The captain of Shabak in the area, new, told villagers that the gate was “punishment”, and that the arrests were further “punishment”. No reason or justification for “punishing” the village, particularly by arresting children, was furnished.

Untrammeled settler violence spreads through Nablus region

International Solidarity Movement

16 April 2010

Israeli settlers have strengthened their campaign of colonization and violence in the Nablus region of the West Bank in recent weeks. A mosque was vandalized and three cars torched in a Israeli settler attack on Huwara village on April 14. In the neighboring village of Burin, attacks on Palestinian civilians and homes continue as six mobile homes have been established on Burin’s land, constituting a new settler outpost.

On Thursday, April 15, international solidarity activists visited Huwara, a village of 6,500 inhabitants, to express solidarity with the village after the mosque had been defaced by settlers early Wednesday morning. Huwara mayor, Samer Odeh, reported that five to six settlers descended on the village in the early morning hours and spray-painted graffiti on the eight-year-old mosque. They also set fire to three cars belonging to inhabitants of the northern region of the village that lies a short distance from Yitzhar settlement. The Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) arrived and immediately closed off the entire area surrounding the mosque. They took pictures and then set to work painting over the graffiti – ostensibly to clean it up, but much more likely to cover up the act. The paint that was used was the wrong color and villagers came to clean the mosque as soon as the Army departed. Some of the graffiti remains and we were able to photograph it.

Another mosque in the village was defaced by settler colons in a similar way just two years ago. The mayor went on to note that the Israeli Army often comes into the village’s nursing school and harasses the women. The grade school, which is near the main road, also suffers such harassment – yet more examples of the extreme hubris of the Israeli Army which harasses and intimidates merely because it can.

From Huwara we traveled north to Burin to visit the head of Burin’s popular committee Bilal and his family and to hear about the incursion of the settlers from the nearby illegal settlement of Bracha into the village. Bilal reported that two weeks ago approximately 20 settler colons entered the village at night, shooting and throwing stones into the windows of two homes. Shortly thereafter the Army arrived, echoing the settlers’ violence with further intimidation aimed at the people in Burin in an effort to silence their protest.

The settler colons from Bracha and Yitzhar are a constant problem and threat to the villagers of Burin – Bilal, himself, carries the scars of a beating by settler colons.

Four days ago, settler colons attempted to steal a horse belonging to a Burin farmer as he made his way down the slopes of the mountains that envelope the village, brandishing a weapon at villages as they came to rescue the frightened animal. Six months ago, settler colons set fire to the house that Bilal is building at the summit of a nearby hill. Since that incident, Bilal has set the house in concrete so as to avoid another arson attack, but that has not stopped the settler colons from spray-painting the home. Looking out over the surrounding hills one can see Bracha very clearly, where 20 new houses have recently been built, despite the alleged 10 month freeze on construction implemented by the Israeli government last year. Six new temporary mobile homes have been established on the peak adjacent to Bilal’s new home five weeks previously, constituting the establishment of a new outpost. Prior to this, settlers had set up tents on the hill, but have since upgraded the constructions to include walls and roves, as well as electricity and water supply.

The settlements of Yitzhar and Bracha, built on the lands of Huwara, Burin and the neighboring villages of Urif, Einabus, Iraq Burin, Madama and Asira al-Qabliya were originally established as Israeli military bases in the early 1980s. Despite their “de-militarization” and alleged transformation to civilian communities, their positions in the region retain strategic value to the Israeli military and significantly aid the continuing annexation of Palestinian land. Residents of the religious settlements have increased their campaign of violent colonization in the past two years, wrecking havoc on the indigenous Palestinian communities and aided by the conspiratorial forces of the Israeli military. Route 60, the main highway running north to south through the West Bank passes directly through Huwara village, constituting the constant threat of settler and military harassment. Burin, situated in a valley between the two settlements bears the brunt of their territorial zeal. Despite the settlements’ violation of international law, Yitzhar was earmarked for increased funding in Israel’s 2009 national priority map.

Michigan Peace Team West Bank office raided

Michigan Peace Team

4 April, 2010

At two o’clock this morning, the Israeli Occupation Army forcefully entered a house in Huwara town, south of Nablus. The house, which was empty at the time, is used as an office for the MICHIGAN PEACE TEAM.

According to some neighbors, who were watching the scene from their windows during the raid, tens of Israeli soldiers forcefully broke the garden gate and the main door and entered the house using sound bombs. The soldiers caused damage to the furniture of the house and confiscated pro-Palestinian banners and posters.

The raid tonight follows the recent Israeli campaign to end Palestinian nonviolent popular resistance, which takes the form of raids, arrest of local activists and organizers, such as Adeeb and Abdullah Abu Rahmah, as well as arrest and deportation of international activists, involved with Palestinian popular resistance, such as the recent unlawful detention/deportation of Eva Nováková, a Czech citizen, Ariadna Jove Marti, a Spanish journalist, and Bridget Chappell, an Australian student in the Beir Zeit university.

Nael Al-Ahmad, a resident of Huwara, described the unjustified raid as a failed attempt to crash the grassroots movement against the Occupation and to hide and bar access to information from the international community about the Israeli inexplicable crimes against the Palestinian people.

Israeli forces impose travel restrictions as settler youth attack Palestinians at Huwara checkpoint

26 November 2009

Israeli Occupation Forces closed Huwara checkpoint for over 2 hours last night and established a flying checkpoint nearby as settlers stormed the area. Israeli military and police made little effort to contain settlers as they amassed at the checkpoint, harassing Palestinian vehicles as families waited in vain to be allowed passage to visit relatives on eve of Eid al-Adha, the holy Muslim holiday. The attack occurs amidst an atmosphere of settler outrage at Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s announcement of a partial 10-month freeze of settlement construction in the West Bank, which can be expected to trigger more outbursts of violence in the area.

Huwara checkpoint, located on Road 60 between Huwara village and Nablus, was shut down entirely at approximately 6pm last night, as soldiers positioned a line of jeeps across the road to block oncoming traffic from Nablus. Narrow roads became congested as an influx of cars traveling north to south were forced to re-route through Awarta checkpoint, which had also tightened its restrictions, stopping many cars to search and question their passengers.

As cars backed up Road 60 a third checkpoint was established 500 metres south between Huwara checkpoint and the village itself, allowing a small amount of Palestinian vehicles to proceed only to be turned away later and forced to return the way they came, effectively blocking all Palestinian traffic.

International activists arrived at the scene to witness soldiers aggressively shouting at Palestinian drivers to return to their cars and leave the area, pointing their guns at those who argued with them and ignoring the full-scale traffic jam developing as confused and angry drivers tried to proceed or turn around. When asked why the checkpoint had been closed, soldiers replied that a demonstration was occurring and it was necessary to impede traffic until it had ended.

Managing to pass the first checkpoint activists proceeded further north to Huwara checkpoint where approximately 20 settler youth had gathered on the road, screaming at soldiers as they attempted to contain them. A skirmish occurred as young female settlers grew hysterical, attacking the few Palestinian cars that gained access to the checkpoint (then forced to turn around), and IDF soldiers tried half-heartedly to keep them at bay. Israeli Police arrived shortly thereafter but permitted the settler youths to remain as they continued to run amuck on the roads, kicking and spitting on Palestinian cars as they passed.

By 9pm the military dismantled the flying checkpoint and allowed the flow of traffic to pass Huwara. Several military jeeps and police cars departed as the settlers turned their attention on the activists present, at first verbally, then physically harassing them. Eventually the settler youth left – not under military or police instruction, but of their own volition – obtaining rides from passing cars from the nearby settlement of Bracha.

It was later alleged that the mob of settler youth had been attempting to gain access to Nablus to visit the religious site of Joseph’s Tomb, located south of the city-centre close to Balata Refugee Camp and believed by some Jews to be the final resting place of the biblical patriarch, and thus a holy site not only for Jews but Muslims, Christians and Samaritans alike. The issue has been distorted over the years as settler councils have called for renewed visitation rights, ostensibly on purely religious grounds but can hardly be seen as apolitical, considering the site’s history and location. Similar contention exists regarding Jacob’s Well, another holy site in Nablus where a priest was murdered by zionist extremists in 1979 during a campaign for the site, a Christian church since 384 AD, to be reconstructed as a synagogue. The settler organisation of Gar’in Shchem has recently re-launched its campaign for unregulated Jewish access to the tomb, erecting a protest tent outside the IDF Samaria Division headquarters and announced a demonstration march from outside Nablus for this coming Thursday, 3 December.

Another contributing factor may well be Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s announcement this week of a 10-month partial freeze on settlement construction inside the West Bank. The declaration angered almost all parties across the Israeli political spectrum, most notably Yesha and municipal settlement councils across the West Bank, who have declared they will “continue to build, if necessary” – outside of government restrictions. Backlashes to what is viewed in settler communities as Netanyahu’s political ‘weakness’ frequently occur on the ground in the form of a ‘price tag campaign’ – a co-ordinated outbreak of settler aggression across the West Bank in response to the state’s feeble attempts to restrict settlement expansion and further annexation of Palestinian land.

The settlement ‘freeze’, whilst heralded by some international and Israeli media as a positive contribution to the peace process, can be expected to achieve no such thing on the ground. The freeze does not apply to public buildings – the construction of which a further 28 have just been given approval – or projects already under way. Nor does it apply to East Jerusalem, where over 1500 Palestinian homes have demolition orders, and the construction of a further 900 new apartments were announced this week in the settlement of Gilo. Construction in Palestinian villages in the West Bank has been effectively frozen since the implementation of the Oslo Accords zoning laws, wherein residents of Areas B and C (partial and full Israeli control, respectively) must apply for permits to build or extend homes or public buildings. Buildings in Area C, and even B, are frequently slated for demolition.