East Jerusalem - On 9 October 2026, two weeks after the right-wing Israeli newspaper Olam Katan reported that the Israeli military would open a section of Route 463 to settler traffic, hundreds marched from the Israeli settlement of Beit El to the settlement of Dolev along the road in celebration.
In recent months, settlers have been protesting in the highway’s vicinity, demanding they use what’s referred to as the “Wallerstein Road”, which Israeli civilians have been barred from since the start of the Second Intifada in 2000.
Their provocative demonstrations often involved waving Israeli flags and hurling stones at Palestinian vehicles, under the Israeli army’s protection.
And the pressure from settlers worked. “The decision in principle has been made, and the IDF [Israeli military] has already begun preparations for the opening of the highway,” head of the Mateh Binyamin Settlement Council, Israel Ganz, said in an interview with Olam Katan.
Israel’s military spokesperson confirmed the news, saying, "The IDF is working to put in place special security arrangements for future travel on the route."
Named after Pinchas Wallerstein, a founder of the settler movement, the 10-kilometre stretch of road runs from al-Bireh and Jalazone refugee camp in the east to the Palestinian village of Ein Qiniya in the west.
Wallerstein, then-head of the Mateh Binyamin Settlement Council, carved out the road without official permits in 1994. Six years later, the army shuttered it to both Israelis and Palestinians when the Second Intifada began.
Gradually, Palestinians gained access to the road again, which passes through Ramallah’s northern area and connects the city to seven Palestinian towns, a university, a school, a major hospital, and a sewage treatment plant.
Opening the road to settlers means isolating eight villages and two large residential neighbourhoods (totalling tens of thousands of Palestinians) in the north from the rest of Ramallah-Al-Bireh, according to the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s (PLO) Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission.
In turn, these residents will be forced to use a different route near the Jalazone refugee camp, which is already severely congested and cannot accommodate more traffic.
“Ramallah will be cut off from all its surrounding villages. Not just its villages, but also the other cities in the north that are coming to Ramallah, [which] mostly use this road,” Jamal Juma, coordinator of the Popular Campaign to Resist the Wall and Settlements, told The New Arab. “It's blocking Ramallah totally.”
Juma explained that in addition to fragmenting Ramallah, Israel’s military presence will increase in the area with the army erecting checkpoints, watchtowers, and fences along the highway. He also warned that Bedouin communities in proximity to the road could be expelled.
“The settlers are the spearhead of Israeli plans in the West Bank,” Juma said. “It's a very strong message that there will be no Palestinian place without settlements and that [Israeli] sovereignty is over every single inch of the West Bank,” he added.
“And it's a message to the Palestinian Authority, saying you have no future whatsoever, as you think and as you were promised by the Oslo agreements.”
Violating the Oslo Accords
The road in question is located mostly in Area B, with some small sections crossing through Area C and two smaller sections crossing into Area A.
Upon the signing of the second agreement of the Oslo Accords in 1995, the peace deal meant to establish a Palestinian state, the West Bank was divided into Areas A, B, and C.
Area A is governed fully by the Palestinian Authority (PA), the governmental body created under Oslo, and Area B is split - with the PA taking administrative responsibility and the Israeli army handling security affairs. Area C, the majority of the West Bank, is under full Israeli military control.
Most of Area A comprises major Palestinian cities, like Ramallah, where the PA headquarters are located.
“Ramallah is the most important urban centre of the PA. This is the city where the administrations are concentrated, and this is the most important city in the West Bank, in terms of administration,” Dror Etkes, founder of Kerem Navot, an Israeli NGO monitoring land policies in the West Bank, told The New Arab.
“So if the settlers have been successful in splitting it, planting facts on the ground, and connecting the settlements north and east of Ramallah with the settlements west of Ramallah, that would be a major achievement in this direction of dissolving the Oslo agreement.”
In recent years, the Israeli state has increasingly adopted new measures seen as eroding the PA’s power in the West Bank.
Following the Israeli army’s mass displacement campaign of Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams refugee camps, the army established a permanent military base next to Jenin refugee camp (in Area A) as well as five other outposts and is planning to set up more.
The military has also confiscated land in Area A to build settler roads, and Israel’s Security Cabinet granted the Civil Administration, the military body implementing Israeli civilian policy in the West Bank, enforcement powers related to the environment, water, and archaeology in Areas A and B.
The Civil Administration also stripped the municipalities of Hebron and Bethlehem of planning and construction responsibilities related to the Israeli settlement inside Hebron and Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem.
Those in government aren’t shy about their motives, either. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has repeatedly called to dismantle the PA, most recently advocating for a war against the West Bank, stating that Israel must “do there what we did in Gaza, to dismantle the Palestinian Authority, which is a terror authority”.
As the Israeli state reneges on its obligations as part of the Oslo Accords, Israeli settlers are encroaching further into PA territory.
Since 2024, settlers have built 32 outposts, settler encampments established without Israeli government permission, inside Area B, and at least three in Area A. The goal seems clear to Etkes: Israeli settlers and the state are working together to unravel the Oslo Accords.
“More and more initiatives starting from the settlers and going up to the military, and of course, by the politicians who are supporting them in order to bring about the collapse of the Oslo agreement and to cancel the geopolitical categories of Oslo - A, B, C,” Etkes said.
“That’s all part of a bigger plan to force Palestinians into very, very small enclaves to eventually force them out of the country.”
The PA was meant to be an interim self-government that would phase out in five years and transition into full Palestinian self-governance over the West Bank. That never materialised, and instead what we are seeing today is the Oslo process in reverse.
Settler takeover, not only of Palestinian land, but also of infrastructure, is integral to that process.
Settlers aren’t just calling for access to 'Wallerstein Road', but also the Beitunia bypass road, or Road 4437, which Israelis have also been barred from using since the Second Intifada.
According to Olam Katan, settler access to that road has also been approved, although no official statement has been released yet. The Israeli army did not respond to The New Arab requests for verification at the time of writing.
These highways aren’t the first Palestinian roads settlers have encroached on, however. Roughly a decade ago, settlers from the Negohot settlement near Hebron gained access to an unnamed road running through Areas A and B in the southern West Bank, Etkes said.
“The road partially became a settlers-only road, especially since October 7th. They completely blocked parts of this road to Palestinians,” Etkes said.
“So this is not the first road which Israel is opening. There is already a precedent that the settlers have been able to establish.”
Jessica Buxbaum is a Jerusalem-based journalist covering Palestine and Israel. Her work has been featured in Middle East Eye, The National, and Gulf News
Follow her on Twitter: @jess_buxbaum
Edited by Charlie Hoyle