Israel’s security cabinet has approved the final segment of a new road for Palestinians in eastern Yerushalayim, increasing their freedom of movement and improving the security of Israelis travelling between the capital and Ma’ale Adumim.
The approval by the Ministerial Committee on National Security Affairs concerns the so-called Living Space Road from the environs of az-Za’ayyem just east of the Hebrew University’s campus on Mount Scopus southward to the al-Eizariya village west of Ma’ale Adumim. The new segment would allow Palestinian movement without checkpoints.
At the same time, Palestinian vehicles would be redirected away from the roads currently connecting Yerushalayim and Ma’ale Adumim, making them accessible only to vehicles with an Israeli license plate.
“It will reduce traffic congestion on Highway 1, ensure transportation continuity between the areas south and north of the road and help reduce congestion at the Zeitim checkpoint,” the Prime Minister’s Office said on Sunday.
According to the statement, the decision was driven by security needs.
“According to the opinion of security officials, there is a security need to create the roads today, especially in light of the security circumstances created during the Iron Swords War, including an attack that occurred during this period near the entrance checkpoint to Jerusalem from the east [“Olive Crossing”], and in light of the increasing volume of traffic in the Ma’ale Adumim area,” the statement read.
Strategically, the new road’s realization would strengthen the Israeli presence in Judea and Samaria, the statement added.
The new road “will improve traffic, strengthen the transportation connection between Jerusalem, Ma’ale Adumim and East Binyamin; and enable the continued development of settlement in the E1 area,” the statement continued, referencing the corridor between Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim. It was recently renamed T1 in honor of U.S. President Donald Trump.
In addition to the new road, the government has announced the initiation of plans for another road for Palestinians from al-Eizariya eastward to the Good Samaritan Interchange, situated halfway between Yerushalayim and Jericho. The new road, “Alternate 80,” would connect “the Bethlehem area and Jericho and the Jordan Valley, and will alleviate the traffic congestion between Jerusalem and Mishor Adumim,” the statement said.
It is called Alternate 80 because it is to serve as an alternative for Palestinians to the corresponding section of Road 1, which runs from Tel Aviv to Beit Ha’Arava in the Jordan Valley.
The creation of the final section of the Living Space Road will cost 335 million shekels ($91 million) and the planning of Alternate 80 will cost another 10 million shekels ($2.7 million), according to the statement.
“We continue to strengthen the security of Israeli citizens and develop settlement,” said Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. “The new road will benefit all residents of the region by making traffic easier and more efficient, contributing to the security and sense of security of the region’s residents, and forming a strategic transportation continuum that will connect Jerusalem, Ma’ale Adumim and the Jordan Valley.”
In February 2024, Palestinian terrorists staged a deadly attack on one of the roads that would be closed for Palestinian vehicles after the completion of the new segment. Three terrorists fired at vehicles near Ma’ale Adumim, killing Matan Elmaliach and wounding seven others.
Israeli Defense Minister Yisroel Katz underlined the project’s significance for cementing Israel’s plans for developing the T1 corridor.
It will “enable the continued development of settlement in the E1 area,” Katz said, using the project’s old name.
Peace Now, which opposes Israeli construction in Judea and Samaria, condemned the new announcement as “bad news for Israel. There is “no desire here to improve Palestinian transportation, but only to allow the annexation of a huge area of ​​about 3% of the West Bank. The road is an apartheid road designed to close off a huge area to the Palestinians without access by car, thus cutting” Judea and Samaria in two, the group said.
The new road, Peace Now added, “could potentially eliminate the possibility of ending the conflict and a two-state solution for two peoples.”
Shai Alon, the mayor of the town of Beit El in Samaria, also spoke of the plan’s consequences for the vision of a Palestinian state.
“Following years of complete and reckless disregard for the Palestinian […] plan to take over state lands and create the infrastructure for establishing a de facto Palestinian state—the time has come to bury it completely,” he wrote.
“I congratulate the government, Defense Minister Katz and Finance Minister [Bezalel] Smotrich, for embarking on a new path, a courageous and just path for Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria,” Alon added. JNS
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