Huwara ( ar, حُوّارة, ''ḥuwwarah'', ) is a

Palestinian Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...

town located in the

Nablus Governorate The Nablus Governorate ( ar, محافظة نابلس ') is an administrative district of State of Palestine, Palestine located in the Central Highlands of the West Bank, 53 km north of Jerusalem. It covers the area around the city of Nablus ...

of the northern

West Bank The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

, south of

Nablus Nablus ( ; ar, نابلس, Nābulus ; he, שכם, Šəḵem, ISO 259-3: ; Samaritan Hebrew: , romanized: ; el, Νεάπολις, Νeápolis) is a Palestinian city in the West Bank, located approximately north of Jerusalem, with a populati ...

, on the main road connecting Nablus southwards to Ramallah and Jerusalem. It is approximately from

Jacob's Well Jacob's Well ( ar, بِئْر يَعْقُوب, Biʾr Yaʿqūb; gr, Φρέαρ του Ιακώβ, Fréar tou Iakóv; he, באר יעקב, Beʾer Yaʿaqov), also known as Jacob's fountain and Well of Sychar, is a deep well constructed into ...

.Rix, 1907, p
25
/ref> According to the

Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS; ar, الجهاز المركزي للإحصاء الفلسطيني) is the official statistical institution of the State of Palestine. Its main task is to provide credible statistical figures a ...

, the town had a population of 5,800 in 2006.

Location

Huwwara is located south of

. It is bordered by

Awarta Awarta ( ar, عورتا) is a Palestinian town located southeast of Nablus, in the northern West Bank. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the town had a population of 5,623 inhabitants in 2007.

Odala Odala ( ar, اودلة) is a Palestinian town in the Nablus Governorate in northern West Bank, located south of Nablus. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), the town had a population of 1,082 inhabitants in mid-year 200 ...

and Beita to the east, Za’tara and

Yasuf Yasuf ( ar, ياسوف) is a Palestinian village located in the Salfit Governorate of the State of Palestine, in the northern West Bank, northeast of Salfit, southwest of Nablus and adjacent to the Israeli settlement of Kfar Tapuach. According to ...

to the south,

Jamma'in Jamma'in ( ar, جمّاعين) is a Palestinian people, Palestinian town in the northern West Bank located southwest of Nablus, northwest of Salfit and north of Ramallah. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the town had a ...

and

Einabus Einabus ( ar, عينابوس) is a Palestinian village in the northern West Bank, located 12 kilometers (7 miles) south of Nablus and a part of the Nablus Governorate. Nearby towns include Huwara and Beita to the east and Jammain to the south. in ...

to the west, and

Asira al-Qibliya ’Asira al-Qibliya ( ar, عصيرة القبلية) is a Palestinian village in the Nablus Governorate in the eastern West Bank, located southwest of Nablus. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), the village had a pop ...

and Burin to the north.

History

Huwara is an ancient site, and

cistern A cistern (Middle English ', from Latin ', from ', "box", from Greek ', "basket") is a waterproof receptacle for holding liquids, usually water. Cisterns are often built to catch and store rainwater. Cisterns are distinguished from wells by t ...

s and

rock-cut tombs A rock-cut tomb is a burial chamber that is cut into an existing, naturally occurring rock formation, so a type of rock-cut architecture. They are usually cut into a cliff or sloping rock face, but may go downward in fairly flat ground. It was a ...

have been found, together with remains of

column A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member. ...

s. It has been suggested that Huwara should be identified with Horon, hometown of

Sanballat the Horonite Sanballat the Horonite ( he, סַנְבַלַּט ''Sanḇallaṭ'') – or Sanballat I – was a Samaritan leader and official of the Persian Achaemenid Empire who lived in the mid to late 5th century BC and was a contemporary of Nehemiah. Etymo ...

. In the 12th and 13th centuries, Hawara was inhabited by

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

Finkelstein Finkelstein ( he, פֿינק(ע)לשׁטײַן or , russian: Финкельштейн) is a German and Yiddish surname originating from Old High German ''funko'' (spark) and ''stein'' (stone). ''Fünkelstein'' meant pyrite (George J. Adler A Dictio ...

did not find any

potsherd In archaeology, a sherd, or more precisely, potsherd, is commonly a historic or prehistoric fragment of pottery, although the term is occasionally used to refer to fragments of stone and glass vessels, as well. Occasionally, a piece of broken p ...

s predating the Ottoman era.

Ottoman era

The village was incorporated into the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

in 1517 with all of Palestine, and in 1596 it appeared in the tax registers as being in the ''

Nahiya A nāḥiyah ( ar, , plural ''nawāḥī'' ), also nahiya or nahia, is a regional or local type of administrative division that usually consists of a number of villages or sometimes smaller towns. In Tajikistan, it is a second-level division w ...

'' of Jabal Qubal, part of

Nablus Sanjak The Nablus Sanjak ( ar, سنجق نابلس; tr, Nablus Sancağı) was an administrative area that existed throughout Ottoman rule in the Levant (1517–1917). It was administratively part of the Damascus Eyalet until 1864 when it became part o ...

. It had a population of 87 households, all Muslim. The villagers paid a fixed tax rate of 33.3% on various products, such as wheat, barley, summer crops, olives, goats and/or beehives, and a press for olives or grapes, in addition to "occasional revenues"; a total of 14,000

akçe The ''akçe'' or ''akça'' (also spelled ''akche'', ''akcheh''; ota, آقچه; ) refers to a silver coin which was the chief monetary unit of the Ottoman Empire. The word itself evolved from the word "silver or silver money", this word is deri ...

.Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 132 In 1838,

Robinson Robinson may refer to: People and names * Robinson (name) Fictional characters * Robinson Crusoe, the main character, and title of a novel by Daniel Defoe, published in 1719 Geography * Robinson projection, a map projection used since the 1960 ...

described Huwara as a "large and old village". It was also noted as a Muslim village, in ''Jurat Merda'', south of

.Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, Appendix 2, p.
127
/ref> In the 1850s the Ottoman rulers withdrew their soldiers from the district (to be used in the

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the de ...

), and hence open hostility could ensue between different Palestinian factions.Schölch, 1993, pp. 211-227 In 1853, Huwara was engaged in a battle with the neighboring villages of Quza and Beita which left ten men and seven women dead.

Victor Guérin Victor Guérin (15 September 1821 – 21 Septembe 1890) was a French intellectual, explorer and amateur archaeologist. He published books describing the geography, archeology and history of the areas he explored, which included Greece, Asia Mino ...

visited the village in 1870. He found the village, (which he called ''Haouarah''), to have about 800 inhabitants, and that it was divided into two districts, each administered by a sheikh. A

oualy A Maqām ( ar, مقام) is a shrine built on the site associated with a religious figure or saint, typical to the regions of Palestine and Syria. It is usually a funeral construction, commonly cubic-shaped and topped with a dome. Maqams are as ...

was dedicated to Abou en-Nebyh Sahin. In 1882, the PEF's ''Survey of Western Palestine'' described Huwarah as a village "of stone and

mud A MUD (; originally multi-user dungeon, with later variants multi-user dimension and multi-user domain) is a Multiplayer video game, multiplayer Time-keeping systems in games#Real-time, real-time virtual world, usually Text-based game, text-bas ...

at the foot of

Gerizim Mount Gerizim (; Samaritan Hebrew: ''ʾĀ̊rgā̊rīzēm''; Hebrew: ''Har Gərīzīm''; ar, جَبَل جَرِزِيم ''Jabal Jarizīm'' or جَبَلُ ٱلطُّورِ ''Jabal at-Ṭūr'') is one of two mountains in the immediate vicinit ...

, just over the main road. It has an appearance of antiquity, and covers a considerable extent of ground".

British Mandate period

In the

1922 census of Palestine The 1922 census of Palestine was the first census carried out by the authorities of the British Mandate of Palestine, on 23 October 1922. The reported population was 757,182, including the military and persons of foreign nationality. The divisi ...

conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Huwara had a population of 921, all

s,Barron, 1923, Table IX, Sub-district of Nablus, p
25
/ref> increasing slightly in the 1931 census, where Huwara (together with the smaller location Bir Quza) had 240 occupied houses and a population of 955, still all Muslims.Mills, 1932, p
62
/ref> In the 1945 statistics Huwwara had a population of 1,300, all Muslims,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p
18
/ref> with 7,982

dunam A dunam ( Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: ; tr, dönüm; he, דונם), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area equivalent to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amount ...

s of land, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 607 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 4,858 used for cereals, while 129 dunams were built-up (urban) land. The first elementary school was established in 1947. Huwara Elementary as well as secondary schools serves infants from neighboring villages up to the present time.

Jordanian era

In the wake of the

1948 Arab–Israeli War The 1948 (or First) Arab–Israeli War was the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. It formally began following the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight on 14 May 1948; the Israeli Declaration of Independence had ...

, and after the

1949 Armistice Agreements The 1949 Armistice Agreements were signed between Israel and Egypt,Jordanian rule. The first elementary school was converted into secondary school in 1962. The first female elementary school was established in 1957. The Jordanian census of 1961 found 1,966 inhabitants.

Post-1967

Since the 1967

Six-Day War The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states (primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, S ...

, Huwara has been under

Israeli occupation Israeli-occupied territories are the lands that were captured and occupied by Israel during the Six-Day War of 1967. While the term is currently applied to the Palestinian territories and the Golan Heights, it has also been used to refer to a ...

. After the 1995 accords, 38% of Huwwara land was classified as

Area B The Palestinian enclaves are areas in the West Bank designated for Palestinians under a variety of U.S. and Israeli-led proposals to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The enclaves are often compared to the nominally self-governing black ...

, the remaining 62% as Area C. Israel has confiscated 282 dunams of Huwwara land for the

Israeli settlement Israeli settlements, or Israeli colonies, are civilian communities inhabited by Israeli citizens, overwhelmingly of Jewish ethnicity, built on lands occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. The international community considers Israeli se ...

Yitzhar Yitzhar ( he, יִצְהָר) is an Israeli settlement located in the West Bank, south of the city of Nablus, just off Route 60 (Israel), Route 60, north of the Kfar Tapuach, Tapuach Junction. The predominantly Orthodox Judaism, Orthodox Jewish ...

. Huwara has been the target of

price tag attacks The price tag attack policy ( he, מדיניות תג מחיר), also sometimes referred to as "mutual responsibility" (), is the name originally given to the attacks and acts of vandalism committed primarily in the occupied West Bank by Is ...

, random acts violence by Israeli Jewish settlers. According to the

International Middle East Media Center The International Middle East Media Center (or IMEMC) is an independent news organization run by Palestinians living in the Palestinian territories, working together with international journalists, who report on events in both Israel and the Pale ...

(IMEMC), in April 2010 settlers torched three Palestinian vehicles in Huwara, while on 27 February 2011, in a price-tag attack against the evacuation of

Havat Gilad Havat Gilad ( he, חַוַּת גִּלְעָד, ''lit.'' Gilad Farm) is an Israeli outpost in the West Bank, established in 2002 in memory of Gilad Zar, son of Moshe Zar and security coordinator of the Shomron Regional Council, who was shot and ...

, settlers threw

molotov cocktails A Molotov cocktail (among several other names – ''see other names'') is a hand thrown incendiary weapon constructed from a frangible container filled with flammable substances equipped with a fuse (typically a glass bottle filled with flammab ...

at a house in the village. In March 2012 a

Star of David The Star of David (). is a generally recognized symbol of both Jewish identity and Judaism. Its shape is that of a hexagram: the compound of two equilateral triangles. A derivation of the ''seal of Solomon'', which was used for decorative ...

was sprayed on a village mosque. In March 2013, in another price-tag attack, Jewish settlers descended on Huwara in the hours after the Borovsky killing- a Tapuach junction stabbing Palestinian terror attack. They attacked a bus carrying Palestinian schoolgirls with stones, shattering a wind-shield and wounding the driver. In October 2014, during the olive harvest season, a fire razed to the ground huge swathes of Palestinian-owned agricultural land between the village of Hawara, near

and the

settlement in the West Bank, destroying over a hundred

olive The olive, botanical name ''Olea europaea'', meaning 'European olive' in Latin, is a species of small tree or shrub in the family Oleaceae, found traditionally in the Mediterranean Basin. When in shrub form, it is known as ''Olea europaea'' ...

trees. Although the cause of the fire has been contested, the mayor of Huwara claimed masked men from nearby

and surrounding settlements set the fire by pouring incendiary fluids on the trees and that the Israeli occupation forces prevented

citizens from reaching the lands in order to extinguish the fire. Later on, the Israeli forces allowed the civil defence from the adjacent Palestinian village of Burin to extinguish the fire, but only after it had expanded to an even larger area . The burning and damaging of olive trees is an ongoing-concern of the United Nations, a pattern the

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

call "price tag" attacks. The United Nations has reported that by 2013 "...Israeli settlers damaged or destroyed nearly 11,000 olive trees owned by the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank." North of Huwara, was the Huwwara Checkpoint, one of the

Israeli checkpoint An Israeli checkpoint ( he, מחסום, ''mahsom'', ar, حاجز, ''hajez''), is a barrier erected by the Israeli Security Forces, primarily today part of the system of West Bank closures in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The checkpoints a ...

s around Nablus, dismantled in 2011 in order to ease traffic between Nablus and

Ramallah Ramallah ( , ; ar, رام الله, , God's Height) is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank that serves as the ''de facto'' administrative capital of the State of Palestine. It is situated on the Judaean Mountains, north of Jerusale ...

. Its location on the main road, used by both Israelis from four

s in the Nablus area and Palestinians from the Nablus area, is a controlling factor of the life in Huwara. The town has many businesses located on the road, which is controlled by the Israeli army to ensure free passage to Jews and Arabs.

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * (Saulcy, 1854, vol 1, p
102
*

External links

Huwara
Welcome to Palestine *Survey of Western Palestine, Map 14
IAAWikimedia commons

Howwarah Municipality Huwwara Town Profile

Applied Research Institute–Jerusalem The Applied Research Institute - Jerusalem (ARIJ; ar, معهد الابحاث التطبيقية - القدس) is a Palestinian NGO founded in 1990 with its main office in Bethlehem in the West Bank. ARIJ is actively working on research project ...

(ARIJ)
Huwwara, aerial photo
ARIJ {{Nablus Governorate Towns in the West Bank Nablus Governorate Municipalities of the State of Palestine