Israel’s military on Friday partly opened a major highway that runs through the West Bank to local Palestinian traffic, the latest twist in the story of a road that for many Palestinians has become a symbol of the injustices of Israeli occupation.
The military had resisted opening the road, known as Highway 443, because of security fears, but it was forced to do so by an Israeli Supreme Court ruling that deemed its continued closing to Palestinians — and its sole use by Israelis — inconsistent with the rules of international law regarding a belligerent occupation.
Still, residents of the Palestinian villages that line the hills along the route, like Beit Sira, say that the new arrangements will make little difference.
West Bank Palestinians using the highway still will not be able to enter Ramallah, the nearest Palestinian city, directly because the Israeli-controlled crossing point that leads from the road into the city is for cargo only. The new system mainly allows for limited movement among the villages themselves.
“This is good for us,” said Yusuf Enkawi, a taxi driver from Beit Sira, “but it is not enough.”
Major Peter Lerner, a spokesman for the army’s Central Command, which is responsible for the West Bank, said on Friday that “there are continuing security concerns,” explaining the significant army presence along the road. Lerner said the risks to Israelis included drive-by shootings, explosive devices or explosive-laden vehicles. Still, he said, the army is “fulfilling the court ruling by the letter.”
Highway 443 encapsulates some of the starkest motifs of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It was closed as a result of terrorism, and has become a symbol in the fight by civil rights groups against the system of segregated roads in the West Bank.
The new checkpoints and miles of fencing and razor wire along the road reflect Israel’s continuing wariness of the Palestinians, even as the two sides have resumed indirect peace talks.
Leaders of half a dozen Palestinian villages in the area held a news conference this week to register their dissatisfaction with the new arrangement.
“On one hand, the Supreme Court decision was good in that it finally recognized us as people with a right to use the road,” said Hassan Mafarjeh, the mayor of Beit Liqya, another village.
However, when it comes to carrying out the decision, he said, it appears that the authorities are playing “games.”
The Palestinian villagers and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, the Israeli organization that argued their case in the Supreme Court, said the army did the bare minimum necessary to comply with the court ruling.
Highway 443 links Jerusalem with Israel’s densely populated coastal plain and serves Israelis as an alternative route to Tel Aviv. The roughly 16km stretch that runs through the West Bank, constructed on land that was expropriated from the Palestinian villages, has a military checkpoint at each end. West Bank Palestinians need a special permit to cross to either Tel Aviv or Jerusalem.
When the land was confiscated in the 1980s, the Palestinian villagers objected, saying they had no interest in a new road. However, the military contended that the villagers would be the main beneficiaries of the highway, and the court yielded to that argument, saying occupied land could be developed for the benefit of those living there, not for the occupiers.
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