The Israeli government last month greenlighted the “Fabric of Life” project, a West Bank infrastructure plan that aims to divert Palestinian traffic through a special bypass road and block their access to a vast area between Jerusalem and the settlement bloc of Ma’ale Adumim.
The segregated road system will force Palestinians from the Bethlehem and Hebron areas to travel underground to get to Jericho in the Jordan Valley, while ensuring exclusive Israeli access to significant swathes of the occupied West Bank.
This would help to de facto annex Palestinian land east of Jerusalem to Israel. It would also allow Israeli construction plans in the E1 area to advance, a critical corridor that lies between the eastern outskirts of Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim.
E1, which runs through the West Bank from north to south, is a highly contested area due to its crucial role in preserving the territorial contiguity of any future Palestinian state. Israel’s planned bypass road through this zone will pave the way for further expansion in the settlement bloc.
It would provide an underground passage designated for Palestinians only, linking East Jerusalem to Ma’ale Adumim and settlements near the Jordan Valley.
The new north-south route, which will connect the Palestinian villages of al-Aizariyah and al-Za'im south of E1, would effectively cut off the communities from the rest of the West Bank, leaving them with virtually no vehicular entry.
“This marks a critical deepening of Israel’s de facto annexation of Area C - fully Israeli-controlled - and East Jerusalem, cutting Palestinian connectivity by fencing their movement into restricted byways,” Yazan Risheq, executive director of Grassroots Jerusalem, told The New Arab.
A born-and-bred Jerusalemite, he expects that once the tunnel project is fully implemented, it will transform the territorial layout of the West Bank, breaking the natural connection between north and south.
In his view, the contentious road initiative will especially harm East Jerusalem communities like Al-Eizariya, Abu Dis, and Az-Za’im, while marginalising and displacing Bedouin communities east of Jerusalem, including in Khan al-Ahmar and Jabal al-Baba, which Israel has been trying to uproot for years.
The so-called “Fabric of Life” project, the Israeli army claims, will improve Palestinian daily life by linking the northern and southern West Bank without passing through the Ma’ale Adumim settlement. But, in fact, its true purpose is to directly connect Jewish settlements, remove security barriers for settlers, and reserve surface access for Israelis only while restricting Palestinian passage to a tunnel.
“Israelis have geographic continuity through direct highways and roads, whereas Palestinians are forced to move between their towns and villages via bypass tunnels,” Khalil Tafakji, head of the technical department at Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem (CCPRJ), told TNA. “I call that a transportation state,” he added.
The plan for the separation road was initially approved in 2020, and the government is now pressing ahead with its construction. The cabinet has allocated around $90 million for the tunnel system. The project is set to be funded using customs revenues withheld from the Palestinian Authority, funds that are supposedly intended for development projects for Palestinians in the West Bank.
According to Tafakji, who is an expert on maps and the issues of borders and settlements, the latest controversial construction project should be understood in the context of Israel’s 1983 Road Plan No. 50, which envisioned a national road network covering the entire West Bank.
The directive laid out a design that would restrict the growth of Palestinian towns and villages by encircling them with ring roads or cutting through urban centres, effectively blocking any future expansion.
The CCPRJ’s technical specialist admitted that the new tunnel construction drive fits into Tel Aviv’s broader aim to redraw the map of the already cantonised West Bank. “Palestinians can’t move freely, and their towns can’t grow since most land has been seized for settlements and outposts,” he noted.
In an interview with The New Arab, Jamal Juma', coordinator of the Palestinian grassroots Stop the Wall campaign, affirmed that the infrastructure changes in the West Bank are all part of a single settler project with one goal: to secure full control over Palestinians.
“It’s about designing the Palestinian future into isolated ghettos, forgotten amid so-called Arab normalisation while Israel extends its hegemony in the region,” he said.
Annexation is moving ahead rapidly, Juma’ said, as Israel rushes to build the infrastructure needed to make it happen.
“It means trapping Palestinians in isolated ghettos, controlling and stripping them of resources in all the lands between cities and villages that people rely on for their livelihoods,” Stop the Wall’s coordinator added, remarking that the Israeli government intends to turn the West Bank into multiple Gaza-like enclaves.
Since October 2023, Israel has used the ongoing genocide in Gaza as a cover to deflect attention and rapidly advance the tunnel project.
“Since October 7, we’ve seen intensified restrictions on Palestinian movement: more gates, new roads, and expanding settlements on Palestinian land to serve settler projects in Jerusalem and the West Bank,” Risheq said.
He argued that the Gaza war has offered Israel the opportunity to revive everything that was on hold for years. “Now is the moment for them to push through projects shelved for a long time,” Grassroots Jerusalem’s director said.
He cited a new survey published by OCHA in March, which found that Israeli authorities have imposed 849 obstacles throughout the West Bank that permanently or periodically restrict the movement of 3.3 million Palestinians across the West Bank.
Documented obstacles include 94 permanently staffed checkpoints, 153 partial checkpoints, and 205 road gates. Together with the 712-km Separation Barrier, the single largest obstacle in the West Bank, these movement restrictions severely limit Palestinians’ freedom of movement, block access to work, healthcare, education, and other key services.
The infrastructure development will split the West Bank into isolated enclaves, sever East Jerusalem from neighbouring Palestinian towns, and pave the way for Israel to annex the E1 zone and nearby settlements. This will rupture any territorial contiguity necessary for a viable Palestinian state, and disconnect Palestinians from their land, livelihoods, schools, services, and each other, thus speeding up their forced displacement.
By building a Palestinian-only tunnel deep in the heart of the West Bank, Israel aims to entrench its presence well beyond the Green Line and strengthen its control over the occupied territory. This underground road is part of a broad, militarised apartheid infrastructure system of roads, tunnels, and checkpoints designed to separate, dominate, and ultimately displace Palestinians.
Risheq underlined how the tunnel road and new barriers will make daily life for Palestinians even harder, undermining businesses and stalling economic activity, blocking access to health, education, and basic services, while also disrupting family life and harming the social fabric.
Juma' stressed that crippling the economy is another way to pressure and control Palestinians. “Israel is devastating the Palestinian economy: businesses are under siege, imports and exports blocked, and distribution disrupted,” he said.
The “Fabric of Life” plan is another major step forward in Tel Aviv’s decades-long effort to expand Jerusalem’s boundaries as part of its ‘Greater Jerusalem’ plan, first presented in the early 2000s by then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Under the scheme, East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed in 1981 and claims as part of its territory, would be linked with a string of settlements stretching east through the Jerusalem desert, reaching the edge of the Jordan Valley.
“East Jerusalem is finished as Israel controls 87 percent of it directly or indirectly,” Tafakji pointed out, highlighting how the occupied land has been confiscated for settlement use, or disguised as land reserved for public purposes and so-called green areas.
“Israel wants to extend metropolitan Jerusalem’s boundaries to take in 10% of the occupied West Bank,” Tafakji said.
The revival of the ‘Greater Jerusalem’ plan has gained momentum under Netanyahu’s current right-wing coalition, which has accelerated moves to annex the West Bank under the pretext of the war in Gaza.
Earlier in 2021, the government advanced the first phase of the “Fabric of Life” road project to isolate the towns of al-Aizariyah and Abu Dis, which have been closely linked to Jerusalem throughout history. The second phase would re-route Palestinian circulation into an eastward tunnel which resurfaces near Jericho.
Alessandra Bajec is a freelance journalist currently based in Tunis
Follow her on Twitter: @AlessandraBajec