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'Apartheid Road' opened to Palestinians
Rights campaigners were last night celebrating the end of "Apartheid Road" after Israel's supreme court ordered the military to open up a major highway that cuts through the West Bank to Palestinians, rather than reserving it exclusively for Israelis.
Ending two years of legal sparring between the military and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), which challenged the ban on behalf of six Palestinian villages, the court ruled that the army had not taken into account the harm to the daily lives of the Palestinians caused by the closure.
ACRI spokeswoman Melanie Takefman said the ruling was–a huge victory" and one that could impact on other road closures. "We hope this will be the end of the segregated roads," she said.
The army blocked off access to the road from Beit Sira village and five others in 2002 after a series of attacks, including shootings, on Israeli motorists. Some critics of the closure charged that it was motivated by a desire to boost Israel's project of annexing swaths of the West Bank at Palestinian expense.
Its closure hit the Palestinian villagers hard, forcing them to use a long, winding route to the West Bank hub of Ramallah for work and medical services.