Authority: Colonial Road 463 threatens to isolate eight villages and two neighborhoods in Ramallah and Al-Bireh Governorate
Israeli reports have revealed efforts to reopen the colonial Road 463 to settlers, a road that cuts through the heart of the Ramallah and Al-Bireh urban area. According to the Commission of Resistance to the Wall and Settlements, its reopening would isolate eight villages and two residential neighborhoods north of the urban cluster from the rest of its parts, forcing tens of thousands of Palestinians to use an old alternative road near the Jalazone camp that suffers from severe congestion.
Israeli media reports have revealed efforts within the occupation military establishment to prepare the necessary conditions for reopening Road 463 to settler traffic, a road that cuts through the heart of the Ramallah and Al-Bireh urban area and separates its north from its south, according to a statement by the Commission of Resistance to the Wall and Settlements. According to spatial data, reopening the road to settlers would isolate eight villages and two large residential neighborhoods in the northern part of the urban cluster from the rest of its parts, forcing tens of thousands of Palestinians to use an old alternative road near the Jalazone camp, a road that already suffers from severe congestion making it unable to accommodate this additional volume of traffic. These reports do not view the plan as an isolated measure but link it to a broader system of ongoing changes in Ramallah and Al-Bireh Governorate, including the network of "Chinese roads" originally built by the Ramallah municipality to ease traffic congestion, which may practically become a tool to redraw population movement in service of new colonial arrangements. The Commission considered that this plan falls within a systematic policy to dismantle Palestinian geographical and demographic continuity in Ramallah and Al-Bireh Governorate, which includes about 400,000 Palestinians distributed across about 80 population clusters, and already suffers from accumulated fragmentation due to Area C, settlements, bypass roads, checkpoints, and military gates, amid escalating movement restrictions since October 7, 2023. The Commission warned that reopening this road to settlers constitutes an additional step towards de facto annexation and emptying Area C of its vital Palestinian extension, in violation of the provisions of international humanitarian law and the rules of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibit changing the legal status of occupied Palestinian territory and obligate the occupying power to protect protected persons from any measure affecting their geographical and social cohesion. It explained that Road 463 dates back to 1994, when it was paved to connect the settlements of "Beit El" and "Dolev," and was then known by a local unofficial name. Following the outbreak of the second intifada, the occupation army prevented settlers, and Palestinians for a period, from using parts of it for security reasons. Recent months have seen a notable escalation in settlement pressure to reopen it fully, manifested in organizing tours and marches by settlers on parts of it, during which they raised Israeli flags and held events near Palestinian sites, with coordination or protection from occupation forces. The continued classification of parts of this road within Area C—despite their actual location inside the densely populated Palestinian urban cluster—constitutes the administrative cover used to justify this trend, in a recurring model of employing the classifications of the Oslo Accords to serve the colonial project instead of protecting Palestinian rights. On the ground, a direct assault by settlers on the road itself was documented, as settlers on September 8 closed a roundabout near the "Ain Ayoub" area on Road 463 near the village of Ras Karkar, and threw stones at Palestinian vehicles, damaging at least one of them, in an incident that falls within an escalating pattern of settler terrorism targeting Palestinian road users in the governorate.