In recent years, the Qalandiya checkpoint has become notorious for traffic jams, with lines of cars often clogging the main thoroughfare running through the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Kufr ‘Aqab and Qalandiya refugee camp in the northern tip of the city (see Neighborhoods beyond the Wall). It is the primary point of passage for Palestinians traveling from points north into Jerusalem, where nearly every arriving car is stopped and often searched. Yet, as Palestinians languish in hours-long queues, Israeli settlers will soon be able to whiz freely through Qalandiya.

At the end of February 2026, Israel’s Ministries of Transportation and Finance, along with the Binyamin Settlement Council, began work on Road 45, which will join a network of roads designed to facilitate smooth passage into Jerusalem for Jewish settlers living north of Ramallah.1

Construction of Road 45 “is part of the development of settlements and making them more stable, more connected to Israel,” Hagit Ofran, codirector of Peace Now’s Settlement Watch Project, told Jerusalem Story.2 “If you have traffic jams every morning, people will not move to the settlement,” Ofran began. “It would be too hard to commute. So if you make a good road, then it becomes much more attractive, and the development will come soon after.” Ultimately, she explained: “We’re talking about the potential development of many settlements in the eastern side of Ramallah and northeast of Ramallah that will get a big boost of development from this road” (see Settlements).

Along with Road 45, Israel just completed the Qalandiya underpass, which runs under the infamous checkpoint. The underpass expands Highway 60 between the Sha’ar Binyamin settlement industrial zone and the British Police interchange, as well as Highway 437, or the Ramallah Bypass, from the Palestinian village of Hizma to Sha’ar Binyamin. Road 437 will connect to the Qalandiya underpass via Road 45. Altogether, Israel is spending NIS 1.280 billion (over $400 million) on this settler highway system.3

Ofran attributed the highway expansion and construction of new roads to the rising settler population in the West Bank, which has ballooned in recent decades to over 730,0004—an increase of over 30 percent from 1993, when the Oslo Accords were signed. To accommodate this population growth, Israeli authorities argue, highways need to be upgraded.5

“After Oslo,” Ofran explained,

When Bezalel Smotrich was appointed as finance minister within the Ministry of Defense in 2023, the additional role expanded his control over Israeli settlement procedures. In one of his first moves in the new position, Smotrich instructed several ministerial heads to prepare for the doubling of the settler population to one million in the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem.6 A core aspect in achieving that number is enhancing highway infrastructure in the West Bank for settlers.

Israel confiscated about 280 dunams (70 acres) of Palestinian land from the villages of Qalandiya, Mikhmas, Jaba‘, al-Ram, al-Baq‘a, and Kufr ‘Aqab to build Road 45, according to Alon Cohen-Lifshitz, director of the West Bank Area C department at Israeli planning rights group Bimkom. The organization worked with the villages and landowners to submit an objection to Israel’s Higher Planning Council, the planning division under the Civil Administration, the military body governing Area C of the West Bank, against the road’s construction in December 2020, two months after the plan was unveiled.7 

While the objection helped delay the plan for a few years, the Higher Planning Council rejected all objections in 2024, paving the way for the road’s construction. In 2025, the civilian deputy head of the Civil Administration ordered the expropriation of the Palestinian land for the road.8

“According to the Israeli interpretation of the law, [the land is for] public use, and the occupier is allowed to confiscate land if it’s [for] a road that will also be used by Palestinians,” Ofran told Jerusalem Story.

Ofran is referring to Israeli Military Order 321 (Land Law Order): Purchase for Public Purposes enacted in 1969, which is based on the 1953 Jordanian Land Law.9 The order allows the military to expropriate land for the public’s benefit, such as infrastructure needs.10 However, the order is often used to build bypass roads that solely benefit Jewish settlers.

Cohen-Lifshitz expanded on this: “The only option is to expropriate the land by justifying that it will only be [used] or Israelis, but in the end, it will only be for Israelis.”

Cohen-Lifshitz elaborated that Road 45 leads “directly to the area that is in the Jerusalem Municipality, and then behind the Green Line”11—referring to the 1949 Armistice Agreement Line that bisects Jerusalem (see map). Palestinians who hold Palestinian Authority (PA) ID cards will not be able to enter Jerusalem via Road 45, unless they have a permit and a military checkpoint is installed.

“Although promoted by Israel as an infrastructure project to improve traffic, Road 45 has clear negative effects on Palestinian neighborhoods,” Marouf al-Rifai, spokesperson for the PA’s Jerusalem Governorate, told Jerusalem Story.12

Al-Rifai explained that the road infrastructure will disconnect Palestinian areas from each other and “facilitate the separation of northern Palestinian areas from southern Jerusalem and the Ramallah region, reinforcing Israeli control over movement.”

“The project has led to the creation of additional checkpoints and barriers at entrances, increasing the difficulty of traveling between neighborhoods and lengthening the time needed to reach work, schools, and health-care services,” al-Rifai said.

For al-Rifai, the plan’s underlying motive is to deepen Israel’s grip over the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, while isolating Palestinians from Jerusalem.

“The road links West Jerusalem with Israeli settlements in northern Jerusalem, enhancing settlement expansion and influence,” he explained. “And it weakens any connected Palestinian network around Jerusalem, forming a policy of indirect displacement.”