The route lacks a ramp to connect the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Kafr Aqab, and will likely deepen traffic congestion and further restrict Palestinian residents' movement and exacerbate existing traffic bottlenecks: 'Its use is intended for Israeli traffic'

by Nir Hasson        6 May 2026       Haaretz

Israeli police in the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Kafr Aqab, in January. Credit: Jamal Awad

Construction on a West Bank bypass road has begun to connect settlements to Jerusalem. Access to the highway, however, will be cut off to tens of thousands of Palestinian Jerusalem residents living next to the planned route.

The Jerusalem Municipality has begun work on Route 45, a bypass road designed to connect Israeli settlements in the West Bank – including Geva Binyamin, Beit El, Kochav Hashahar, Kochav Yaakov, and Tel Zion, as well as other settlements north of Jerusalem – to Route 60, and, according to Transportation Minister Miri Regev, "bring one million residents to Judea and Samaria [the biblical name of the West Bank]."

The route lacks a ramp to connect the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Kafr Aqab, and will likely deepen traffic congestion and further restrict Palestinian residents' movement and exacerbate existing traffic bottlenecks.\

According to the Kafr Aqab Neighborhood Committee, "approximately 140,000 residents holding Israeli identity cards, who are an integral part of Jerusalem," live in the East Jerusalem neighborhood, which, 20 years ago, was cut off from Jerusalem with the construction of a separation barrier that forces its residents to pass through checkpoints in order to enter the city.

Most residents of the neighborhood hold Israeli residency and are employed in Jerusalem. Some of them are forced to wake up before dawn to pass a checkpoint.

The Kafr Aqab committee noted that "residents suffer from heavy traffic congestion, a lack of proper transportation infrastructure, and complete dependence on the Qalandiyah checkpoint."

To avoid this, many of them take Hizma checkpoint instead, but due to the construction of Route 45, the road connecting Kafr Aqab to Hizma is expected to close, and congestion in the Qalandiyah area is expected to increase significantly.

Moreover, the construction work is also expected to block one of the neighborhood's only two exits toward Jerusalem for several months, forcing them to reroute their commute to the already over-congested Qalandiyah; Kafr Aqab residents already suffer from massive traffic jams that last most of the day.

The Kafr Aqab committee said the project "creates a significant gap between the transportation needs of the neighborhood's residents and the actual planning," highlighting that, "according to publicly available information, it appears that the road does not include a connection or ramp allowing neighborhood residents to join it, and its use is intended for Israeli traffic" only coming from the direction of the Binyamin Regional Council settlements.

Moreover, for the road's construction, the state expropriated 280 dunams of private land from Palestinian residents.

The anti-occupation group Peace Now has estimated that the total cost of the road, tunnel, and expansion of connecting roads will be about 680 million shekels ($233 million). The road is expected to serve approximately 46,000 Israeli settlers, meaning the average cost per resident will be about 15,000 shekels ($5,140).

The construction work for the road is being carried out by Moriah Company, which is the Jerusalem municipality's infrastructure company. In recent years, Moriah has been involved in several large projects connecting the city to surrounding settlements. Most of these projects serve settlers and not Jerusalem residents.

One such example is Route 4370, which has been called the "Apartheid Road": its western side serves Palestinians, who cannot enter Jerusalem, whereas the road's eastern side serves Israeli settlers, who can now reach Jerusalem neighborhoods like French Hill and Mount Scopus more easily from West Bank settlements.

The Jerusalem area bypass road, Route 4370, has been called the 'Apartheid Road': it's divided in the middle by an eight-meter high wall: One side serves Palestinians, the other, settlers. Jan 9, 2019 Credit: Olivier Fitoussi

Moriah Company said that "the exit from Kafr Aqab toward Hizma will also remain open and available as usual," adding that the project is a "central component of a broad transportation system aimed at enhancing accessibility and connectivity throughout the entire region."

"Route 45 is a strategic and vital infrastructure project designed to improve the quality of life and mobility for all residents of the area, including Kafr Aqab residents," they said, highlighting that the project will provide "significant relief" in traffic congestion between the settlement of Geva Binyamin and Hizma, "as well as in the neighborhoods of Pisgat Ze'ev and Neveh Yaakov."

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