A three-member Supreme Court panel ruled on Thursday that the authorities are permitted to impose travel restrictions upon Arabs in order to protect lives – but said other methods must be considered. The panel included Chief Justice Dorit Beinisch and Judges Eliezer Rivlin and Ayala Procaccia.
The case at hand involved a road near the southern Judea community of Negohot that has been partially closed to Arabs for years. Local Arabs filed suit against the IDF for the closure, which was instituted for security reasons. The road was the scene of many Arab rock-throwings against Israeli vehicles, as well as other attacks.
The road is the only Israeli-controlled route to and from Negohot.
In 2000, when Negohot enjoyed only one access route, that lone road was given over to the control of the Palestinian Authority, in the framework of the Camp David withdrawals. This left Negohot an Israeli enclave surrounded by PA-controlled areas, and made travel difficult, to say the least; several clashes with Palestinian Authority policemen ensued. Israel later paved another road leading from Negohot to the northern Negev, bypassing the Arab village of Awa – and it is this road that was the subject of the court case.
The Court ruled that in principle, the army has the right to close roads in order to maintain security. In this case, however, the judges ruled that they were not convinced that other options had been sufficiently considered. The court gave the army three months in which to do so.
Negohot now has 40 families, three times more than when the town found itself isolated by having its sole road handed over to the PA. In addition to the new road leading to Be’er Sheva, Kiryat Gat and nearby Shekef, the residents still use the road to the Southern Hevron Hills – though under army escort. The town’s children go to school there, and the residents – some of whom work near Hevron - make sure to use both roads as often, as possible in order to ensure their connections with both the Negev and Judea areas of Israel.
Terrorists have attempted to infiltrate Negohot several times over the past years, and one succeeded in murdering a young man and a baby girl on Rosh HaShanah six years ago – Eyal Yeberbaum and baby Shaked Avraham. Today, one of the neighborhoods in thriving Negohot is named Eyal, and the nursery compound is named Shaked (pronounced Shah-ked).