3 March 2008: High Court to discuss prohibition on Palestinian use of Route 443

Route 443 is the main traffic artery south of Ramallah District.  In the past, most traffic between Ramallah and the area’s villages used the road. In 1988, Israel expropriated land from the adjoining Palestinian villages to expand it, claiming that the road will serve Palestinians as well. In spite of this promise, the army has prohibited Palestinians from using the road since 2002, using security arguments. Now the road, which links Jerusalem and the Tel-Aviv area, serves only Israelis.

On Wednesday, 5 March 2008, the High Court of Justice will hold its first hearing on the petition the Association for Civil Rights in Israel filed on behalf of six local villages. The petitioners demand that the road be opened to Palestinian use and that the physical obstructions blocking access to the road be removed.

The blocked exit to Route 443 from the village of Beit ‘Ur al-Fuqa. Photo: B'Tselem

The petitioners contend, inter alia, that,

Accepting the respondents’ position and approving the prohibitions on movement imposed on Palestinian residents of the area would be a dangerous quantum jump, the significance of which is authorizing the use of occupied territory for the needs of the occupying state. Such a ruling would directly contradict the rule established in HCJ 393/83, Jam’iyyat Askan v. Commander of IDF Forces in Judea and Samaria (Piskei Din 37 (4) 785). . . The actions of the military commander toward the six petitioner villages that are the subject of this petition, since expropriation of village land to build Route 443, are a flagrant example of the distortions and exploitation that the military commander made of the special powers given him. . . The respondents’ actions in expropriating Route 443 for the sole need of the population of the State of Israel not only breach one of the fundamental principles of the law of occupation, they also breach a fundamental prohibition in the law – the prohibition on discrimination.