Route 443 (Israel–Palestine)

Route 443 between Modi'in and Jerusalem Route 443 near Giv'at Ze'ev Junction, with pyramid-shaped stacks of barbed wire forming a section of the Israeli West Bank barrier Route 443 ( ), also Ma'ale Beit Horon (ascent of Beth-Horon ), is the main highway connecting Modi'in with Jerusalem and Tel Aviv , and also serves as a secondary connection between the Tel Aviv area and Jerusalem.¹ While technically listed as a regional road, it is for the most part a divided, four-lane highway which utilises some grade separation and interchanges , as well as major at-grade intersections , and thus is not classified as a motorway , even though there is a short motorway section on its western end, connecting it to westbound Highway 1 . The highway departs Highway 1 and Highway 6 at Ben Shemen Interchange , and continues eastwards to Shilat junction, which serves as the entrance for the Modi'in area. It continues east into the West Bank in the Matte Binyamin Regional Council , near Ramallah , where it becomes Jerusalem's Begin Expressway via the newly designated Highway 45 . A spur, road 436, links it with Giv'at Ze'ev and the Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramot . Several of the access roads connecting Palestinian villages with Route 443 in the West Bank portion have been closed since the September 2000 outbreak of the Second Intifada . Frequent fire bomb attacks and fatal shootings on Israeli traffic saw the erection of anti-sniper barricades on parts of the highway adjacent to Palestinian populated areas. In a March 2008 ruling, the Israel's Supreme Court upheld for six more months the IDF's right to limit Palestinian traffic to prevent attacks, challenged by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel . The Israeli Human Rights Group B'Tselem has also criticized the closure of route 443 for Palestinians as an example of Collective punishment , which is illegal under International law . On December 29, 2009 Israel's High Court of Justice accepted the Association for Civil Rights in Israel 's petition against an IDF order barring Palestinians from driving on Highway 443. The ruling came into effect on May 28, 2010, allowing Palestinians to use the road for the first time since 2002, when it was closed following Palestinian attacks on Israeli motorists during the Second Intifada . The road was the site of many battles in antiquity due to its unique geography, most famously part of the biblical story of Joshua , and the combat between the Macabees and the Seleucid Empire . As opposed to the modern Highway 1, which twists and turns in gullies on its route from the coastal plain to the Judean hills , the central portion of Highway 443 ascends along a ridge line, and thus maintains a relatively stable grade .²