Highway 60 (Israel–Palestine)

Highway 60 passes through or near Jerusalem, Hebron, Bethlehem, Shiloh, Gush Etzion, Mount Gilboa, and the Jezreel Valley, connecting southern Israel with the north through the central mountain region.[1] In Jerusalem it serves as a main north–south highway, leading north toward Nablus and south toward Hebron and Beersheba.[8] Within the West Bank, its mountain-road corridor connects Jenin and Nablus in the north with Ramallah, Bethlehem, and Hebron farther south.[4]

Tapuach Junction connects Route 60 with Road 505, an east–west axis carrying travel from Gush Dan and Ariel toward the Jordan Valley.[4] Both Palestinian and Israeli traffic use the junction, making it an intersection between the mountain corridor and access to the valley.[4] Farther south, the Jerusalem–Gush Etzion connection includes the Tunnels Road, named for two tunnels on the southern Jerusalem section.[3]

Descriptions of the highway’s northern extent have used different destinations: a 2019 account described its endpoint as Nazareth, while a 2026 account identified Nof HaGalil.[1][9] A 2018 road-numbering proposal treated Highway 60 as a set of discontinuous sections, partly because some portions had been transferred to Palestinian Authority jurisdiction and because the route passed through Jerusalem’s urban area.[10]

The name “Way of the Patriarchs” associates Route 60 with biblical journeys toward Bethlehem and Hebron, although the modern highway does not closely resemble the ancient road along every section.[3] The contemporary route’s administrative history includes its designation in the 1995 Israeli–Palestinian Interim Agreement as a main north–south road crossing Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah, and Bethlehem.[11]

The agreement provided for joint patrols led by a Palestinian vehicle on the specified roads, with patrols in each district to begin after the relevant redeployment had been completed.[11] Their mission was to assist free, unimpeded, and secure movement by monitoring traffic, addressing incidents that could endanger road users, and reporting incidents and responses to coordination offices and security headquarters.[11] Another reproduced annex text also identified a stretch of Routes 57 and 60 through Nablus as an east–west road.[12]

The patrol provisions allowed a district coordination office, within three months after redeployment, to decide whether joint patrols would operate on roads crossing Areas A, B, and C.[12] They also provided for continued free use of roads by Israeli military forces and civilians; on jointly patrolled main roads, Israeli-plated vehicles were not to be stopped except for identification by a joint patrol under the specified procedures.[12] The agreement’s broader movement provisions called for travel between West Bank cities, towns, villages, and refugee camps to be “free and normal,” while expressly preserving Israel’s security powers and responsibilities.[11]

Road and barrier planning subsequently gave increasing attention to tunnels and grade-separated connections around Jerusalem and Gush Etzion.[13][14] A 2004 study described the planned southern barrier route as proceeding from Tsur Baher–Umm Tuba to Khirbet Mazmuriya, then turning west to the entrance to Highway 60’s Tunnels Road.[13] From there, the planned route was to continue westward, with Batir, Husan, and Nahalin connected to the Al Khader–Bethlehem area by a subterranean passage under Highway 60.[13]

Work near Rachel’s Tomb was suspended following High Court petitions, and the barrier route there was changed after pressure from Israeli cabinet ministers and Jerusalem’s then-mayor to include the tomb within the barrier’s Israeli side.[13] A separate Ministry of Defense plan published on February 20, 2005, proposed walls along Route 60 between Jerusalem and Gush Etzion instead of an earlier arrangement encircling Palestinian villages.[14] Under that proposed configuration, residents would reach neighboring towns through tunnels beneath Israeli roads; these descriptions concern plans rather than confirmation that every proposed work was completed.[14]

The 2018 national numbering proposal would have retained the number 60 between Beersheba and Jerusalem’s entrance, renamed the Geva Binyamin–Yitzhar section Route 62, the Jenin–Afula section Route 712, and the Afula–Nazareth section Route 68.[10] These were proposed changes, not confirmation of an implemented renumbering.[10]

The Hawara bypass developed from demands made in 2017, with an initial NIS 200 million earmarked that November and a further NIS 600 million planned, partly for construction.[5] A contractor received a start-work order in February 2021.[5] An additional NIS 50 million that year enlarged the design from one lane in each direction to a dual carriageway with two lanes each way, shifting the expected completion date from March 2023 to the first quarter of 2024.[5] By May 2024, Route 60 was described as looping around Hawara rather than directly traversing the town.[15]

A broader infrastructure plan approved in 2018, costing more than NIS 1 billion, included traffic signals at the Givat Asaf, Kokhav Ya’akov, and British Police Station intersections.[9] It also provided for planning a dual carriageway with two lanes in each direction between Tapuach Junction and Meitar.[9]

In September 2024, state-owned roads company Netivei Israel published a tender to widen an 11-mile section between Sha’ar Binyamin, outside Jerusalem, and the British Police Junction near Ofra by one lane in each direction, with preparations for public-transport lanes.[6] The project formed part of a larger expansion plan extending from Jerusalem toward Tapuach Junction and northern Samaria; the reported allocation for Route 60 was NIS 2 billion within a wider roads budget for Judea and Samaria.[6]

Planning approval to double the road between the British Police Station and Tapuach Junction was reported in July 2026.[16] The planned benefits included improved safety, reduced congestion, and more continuous travel between Jerusalem, Benjamin, and Samaria; these were anticipated outcomes, not completed improvements.[16]

Road-safety figures published in 2019 recorded 61 fatal crashes and 87 deaths on Highway 60 over the six-year period examined, with 13 of those deaths occurring within the Green Line.[9] Seven fatal crashes in the year before publication had killed seven people, and five people had died near Ofra since the beginning of 2019.[9] Residents described single lanes in each direction, limited shoulders, curves, unsafe overtaking, and increasing traffic as hazards.[9]

Security risks have also shaped travel along the route.[17] A 2016 account, citing an IDF Judea Brigade review, recorded 25 Israeli civilians killed in attacks since the implementation of the Oslo Accords in 1993 on an approximately 25-kilometer stretch of the southern Hebron Hills between the Shama area and Beit Hagai near Kiryat Arba.[17] The road remained open to Palestinian traffic at the time of that report.[17]

Before the Hawara bypass, residents of Yitzhar, Har Bracha, Elon Moreh, and Itamar often traveled through Hawara when heading toward Tel Aviv or Jerusalem.[18] In 2017, an alternative bypass was described as adding approximately 30 minutes to the journey.[18] The Hawara section carried both Israeli and Palestinian traffic and, in 2022, lay in Area B, combining Palestinian administrative control with Israeli security control.[19] It was then among the few West Bank highway sections used by Israelis that did not lie in Area C.[19]

Tapuach Junction has a particular role in Israel’s security concept: control of the junction is viewed as important for routine security and for preventing a foreign army from entering from the east through the Jordan Valley.[4] Proposals discussed in permanent-status negotiations at Camp David in 2000, Taba in 2001, and Annapolis in 2008 envisaged transferring it to Palestinian control.[4]

Three roadblocks on Route 60 south of Hebron impeded movement for tens of thousands of Palestinian village residents in 2010 and cut businesses’ direct access to Hebron’s commercial center.[20] These conditions belonged to the reporting period and do not establish the current status of those roadblocks.[20] The same period’s account described restrictions on Palestinian vehicle and pedestrian movement in downtown Hebron, alongside Israeli settler access to roads from which Palestinians were barred.[20]

A July 2007 paper on agricultural exports described restrictions on access to the newer Route 60 alignment as diverting Palestinian traffic onto secondary, mountainous, lower-quality roads, with consequences for mobility and shipping.[21] It placed these changes within a movement regime that intensified after the Second Intifada began in September 2000 and especially after Operation Defensive Shield in March 2002.[21] Its account distinguished roads prohibited to Palestinian traffic, roads restricted by permit, and roads open to it.[21]

The paper also described Ariel Sharon’s September 2004 Continuous Movement Plan, or Roads and Tunnels Plan, as proposing 24 tunnels and 56 roads to facilitate Palestinian traffic amid restrictions on other roads.[21] These figures concerned the wider proposed network rather than works confined to Highway 60.[21]

The Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs characterizes post-Oslo bypass roads as enabling Jewish travelers to avoid Palestinian population centers for safer travel, sometimes at the cost of longer journeys.[22] It describes particular old-road sections north of Ramallah and between Karmei Tzur and Halhoul as serving Palestinians only at the time of its account, and says Jews could not use the old Jerusalem–Hebron road through Solomon’s Pools and Deheishe.[22] These are the article’s time-specific claims about particular sections, not an access rule for Highway 60 as a whole.[22]

A September 2016 incident near Bethlehem involved an Israeli settler vehicle striking a Palestinian farmer, who suffered broken bones, before the vehicle left the scene.[23] The driver later surrendered to Israeli police, who classified the incident as a traffic accident and released the driver without charge.[23]

Jerusalem, Hebron, Bethlehem, Beit El, and Shiloh are among the places along or near Highway 60 emphasized in its development as a biblical heritage corridor.[7] A 2023 documentary-tour account presented the road as a 146-mile highway connecting these and other destinations, with most of the visited locations in the biblical provinces of Judea and Samaria.[24]

A 2026 proposal to brand Highway 60 as a heritage and tourism route included visitor centers, viewpoints, multilingual signs, and cultural and educational material.[25] At a ceremony in Gush Etzion on June 18, 2026, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the name “Bible Road,” or Derekh HaTanakh, linking it with Jewish historical memory and national identity.[26]

On November 3, 2026, the government’s approval of the official name “Derech HaTanach,” translated as “The Biblical Highway,” was reported.[7] The June designation ceremony was attended by Netanyahu, Transportation Minister Miri Regev, Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, and U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee.[7] Ministries were instructed to advance the development and preservation of biblical, historical, and archaeological sites along the route, while transportation authorities were tasked with updating signs and received funding for signage changes.[7]

The initiative aims to combine archaeological preservation, tourism infrastructure, historical interpretation, and international promotion.[7] Its intended audiences include international visitors, Christian tourists, and students of the Bible.[7]

At Beit Jala, Route 60 passes through a 900-meter tunnel on the connection between Jerusalem and Gush Etzion.[27] A study of possible territorial arrangements used the tunnel to illustrate a hypothetical division of sovereignty, with Israel retaining the underground roadway and Palestinians controlling the land above.[27] The proposed configuration aimed to preserve Israeli passage while allowing Palestinian access between nearby communities, including Husan; it was not an agreed sovereignty arrangement.[27]

A 2025 travel account followed Route 60 through the Gilo Tunnel and a checkpoint, past Beit Jala and Bethlehem, then Al-Khader, Efrat, and the Gush Etzion roundabout.[28] Israeli settlements, Palestinian villages, and farmland bordered the journey, while an Israeli-built wall obscured Bethlehem from passing drivers.[28] Rachel’s Tomb, Solomon’s Pools, and Deheishe also feature in accounts of the road network and barrier planning around Bethlehem.[13][22]

Route 60’s connection to settlement growth gives it political significance beyond transportation.[2] Between 2015 and 2019, eight of the 34 settlements with the greatest territorial growth—24%—were along the route, as were 41% of housing units constructed in newly expanded territory east of the security barrier.[2] In October 2021, settlements along Route 60 accounted for 952 of 1,341 finalized housing units and 760 of 1,519 units deposited for approval; 663 of the combined 1,712 units along the route were west of the barrier.[2]

Debate over bypasses at Hawara and al-Aroub has involved both protection of Israeli road users and the roads’ potential to reinforce settlement transportation continuity.[2] Wider disagreement concerns Israeli settlements themselves: most of the international community considers them illegal, while Israel disputes that position.[1] Future-control scenarios involving the highway and its tunnels remain proposals rather than agreed territorial arrangements.[27]