‘No future for West Bank village’

HUWARA: Once a bustling Palestinian town with sought-after restaurants and auto mechanics, Huwara in the occupied West Bank has been hit hard by the fallout from Hamas’s October 7 attack.

The forced closure of businesses and construction of a new bypass diverting traffic from the town of about 7,000 people has choked off economic activity, driving merchants to despair.

“Huwara, it’s over. There is no future,” butcher Nidal Jbour said this week, standing in front of the bloody carcasses of cows and sheep hanging from hooks.

His shop is located on Route 60, which crosses from north to south through the centre of town.

Like around 500 other traders located along the road, Jbour had to close his shop after October 7 on the orders of the Israeli army, which also blocked access to the town.

The decision was explained as a necessary response to security fears stemming from the Hamas attack as well as past episodes of violence between Huwara residents and Israeli settlers living in the surrounding hills.

While the traders were gradually allowed to reopen after three months, business is nowhere near pre-war levels.

The attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 31,341 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

The West Bank, meanwhile, has also experienced a surge of violence, with the Palestinian Authority reporting at least 430 deaths at the hands of Israeli forces or settlers since the war broke out. In Huwara, security issues related to the conflict are coupled with more parochial problems, specifically related to the construction of the new bypass -- completed at the end of last year -- that has left Route 60 a shadow of its former self.

Route 60 was previously “a vital artery”, said Huwara mayor Jihad Odeh, tracing it on a map hanging in his office. The closure of shops and the temporary blocking of the road led to “a breakdown in social and economic life”, he said, and now the bypass funnels traffic elsewhere. 

— AFP