Although the cause of the fire has been contested, the mayor of Huwara claimed masked men from nearby Yitzhar and surrounding settlements set the fire by pouring incendiary fluids on the trees and that the Israeli occupation forces prevented Palestinian 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 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 checkpoints around Nablus, dismantled in 2011 in order to ease traffic between Nablus and Ramallah. Its location on the main road, used by both Israelis from four Israeli settlements 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. On May 18, 2017, an Israeli settler from Itamar driving through Huwara was attacked by stone throwers. The settler used his firearm, killing one and wounding another.