'We can't even cross': the West Bank town split in two by Israel [View all]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/09/palestinian-town-split-in-two-by-israel-huwara

We can’t even cross’: the West Bank town split in two by Israel

Residents of Huwara, in the West Bank, cannot cross the main street without permission and must detour for miles to reach other neighbourhoods

Peter Beaumont in Huwara
@petersbeaumont1
Thu 9 Nov 2023 00.00 EST

On the main street of the Palestinian West Bank town of Huwara, where Road 60 heads north towards Nablus, the shops are all shuttered. Petrol stations, bakeries, banks, the business selling cut stone from the local quarries, the sweetshops and mobile phone boutiques are closed at the order of the Israeli military. At the main crossing points between the west and east of the now divided town, wary Israeli soldiers with machine guns guard a closed yellow metal gate.

On the road itself, the only cars that are moving belong to residents of the nearby hardline Jewish settlements that dot the surrounding hills, whose ultra-orthodox nationalist residents have a reputation for promoting and carrying out violence against Palestinians.

The denial of Road 60 to Huwara’s Palestinian residents is being enforced despite the fact that a new bypass for the use of the settlers is now passable by car: but many choose to drive through the centre of Huwara, to emphasise their hold on the land.

The splitting of the flashpoint town, east from west, began on 7 October – the day the Islamist militant group Hamas massacred 1,400 people in the southern Israeli communities close to the Gaza border – and represents one of the most extreme responses by the Israel Defence Forces in the occupied West Bank. It has come, however, as far-right figures – including Israel’s hardline nationalist finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich – have used the crisis to demand the imposition of new “security zones” to be set up around Jewish settlements to create new areas closed to Palestinians.

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