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Despite countless casualties and years of commitments, the government has once again forgotten the bloody road
Israeli governments have repeatedly promised to widen the stretch of road between the Golani and Afula junctions, which claimed the lives of 15 people within a decade - but even the current budget proposal did not include upgrading the road, and residents are desperate: "Every trip - a gamble on life."
Ministry of Transportation: Budgeting of works - within a few months
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car accidents
Department of Transportation
Eli Ashkenazi
Tuesday, August 10, 2021, 11:16 Updated: Wednesday, August 11, 2021, 11:20
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The road from the Golani Junction to Afula, which has seen close to 200 road accidents and huge numbers of casualties in the past six years, will not be widened - even though Israeli governments have been committing to doing so for more than ten years.
Just Monday morning, six people were lightly injured in an accident near Kfar Tavor, and were evacuated by MDA personnel who were called to a hospital. This road, which has only one lane in each direction, according to
data from the Central Bureau of Statistics, from the beginning of 2016 until a month ago, there were 174 accidents with casualties in this section. In those accidents, six people were killed, 35 seriously injured and 410 slightly injured. Since the middle of 2004, it appears that in the last 17 years 34 people have been killed in this section, an average of two a year.
More on Walla!
9 casualties every day for the past decade: This is how Israel has failed to protect pedestrians
To the full article
Five years, 174 accidents with casualties (Photo: Official website, Fire and Rescue Tiberias)
Road number 65 is a main traffic artery from the coastal plain to the Galilee, which stretches for 90 kilometers.
It begins at the Caesarea Interchange on the coastal road in the west and ends at the Kadarim Interchange in the Galilee.
Over the years, the road was widened and another lane was added to each direction of travel, and a fence or dividing wall was erected between the directions of travel.
But in one section, the one between the Dovrat junction and the Golani interchange, there is only one lane left in each direction.
The vast majority of fatal accidents on this section of road were frontal, i.e .: those accidents that would have been avoided were two lanes in each direction, and a separation fence in the middle.
For more than a decade, the Israeli governments have been pledging to the residents of the area and the heads of the local authorities that the works to widen the road will be budgeted and set in motion.
So far, all these promises have been broken.
Walla !: 15 killed in ten years in only 19 km
April 2011
- A 28-year-old man from Kfar Qassem was killed between Na'ura Junction and Dovrat Junction when he overturned his motorcycle.
August 2011
- A father and son, Ibrahim (60) and Salem (30) Shehadeh from Nazareth, were killed in a head-on collision in the section between the Bo'ina-Nujidat junction and the Eilabun junction.
September 2011
- Hussein Hassan Hamidi (55), his wife Fethiya Muhammad Sa'ub (51) and their relative Atar Ali Sa'ub (27) were killed in a head-on collision between Eilabun Junction and Bu'ina-Nujidat Junction.
November 2011
- Killed in a head-on collision between a private car driver and a bus at Dvoria Junction.
July 2013
- Killed in a head-on collision between a truck and a private car between Dovrat Junction and Neura Junction.
August 2013
- Rachel Halevi Kerso (54) from Sharona was killed in a head-on collision between Givat Hamore and Nin Junction.
September 2014
- A 66-year-old pedestrian from Turan was killed while crossing the road north of the Golani Interchange.
January 2016
- Private Niv Glam (20) was run over to death as he crossed the Ilaniya junction.
May 2017
- Muhammad Zoabi, a 21-year-old resident of Na'ura, was killed when he overturned with the motorcycle he was riding in the section between Alon Tavor and Na'ura Junction.
November 2018
- Wissam Khalil, 40, from Bo'ina Nujidat, was killed and seriously injured in a collision between two cars and a bus near Ilaniya.
January 2019
- Killed in a frontal accident between the intersections Shibli and Umm al-Ghanem.
June 2021
- 21-year-old Adham Musa from Bu'ayina is killed in a collision between a van and a truck between Ilaniya and Beit Keshet.
By all promises and commitments, the expansion of this section was to be included in the new state budget.
Preliminary work worth tens of millions of shekels has already begun in the field: side roads have been paved for the trucks and tractors, archeological rescue excavations have been carried out, temporary lighting has been installed and more.
As usual, the familiar signs that ensure the execution of the project were also placed.
"Sorry for the inconvenience," it read, promising that the same inconvenience would end in June 2023, when the project was supposed to end.
But the government's budget proposal shows that those 19 kilometers will not be addressed this time either.
Moreover, from the same budget that the government is about to bring to the approval of the Knesset, it appears that not a single shekel will be invested from Hadera North to improve the road system.
The Israeli way of death
Nitzan Peleg, head of the Lower Galilee Regional Council, said he and heads of neighboring authorities have already approached the state comptroller in light of what he defines as "dragging the feet" of the state when it comes to upgrading the road. "Forget that road," Peleg said. "In promoting the northern roads, the government will not invest a single shekel in the near budget. The northern roads are no longer under heavy load. It is hard to believe, but today there are traffic jams in the middle of the day between Afula and Kfar Tavor."
Peleg called for changing the budget proposal for the coming year, so that at least one section of all three parts of the future project will be budgeted, and to invest NIS 200 million in the coming year, out of the NIS 830 million needed for the entire project.
Residents of the area have demonstrated several times in the face of the dangers lurking on the road, and now there are those among them calling for a louder protest.
"The time has come to see results on the ground. We have already received enough empathy and promises," said Shaked Goldman from Kfar Tavor.
For several years now he has been contacting government offices and always receives promises that the works will be launched soon.
"It is not possible that in 2021 we still have to gamble on life at every exit for a routine and daily trip on the main axis of Route 65, through the Israeli death road," he says in frustration.
Fatal accident on Road 65, November 2018 (Photo: Fire and Rescue, Fire and Rescue Northern District)
The "Green Light" organization also protested against the decision to remove the works to upgrade the road from the state budget. "Have long had to improve the infrastructure in the red and the dangerous road 65 years we cry out and warn the red section of the road is like Russian roulette every trip that is a gamble on life," said Erez Kita, director of the organization.
"Although many commitments in the past, Nothing has been done to improve the safety of road users, and unfortunately our hearts also have no planning or budget for it. The result will be that more and more people may pay with their lives on an old road, without a guardrail and without standard margins - a road where infrastructure problems are skyrocketing, "he added." The data is sharp and clear and everyone knows people will be killed on the road, "Even today, the money must be transferred to Netivei Israel in order to improve the infrastructure on the Red Road and make it safe, in order to prevent more families from bereaving their loved ones on the dangerous section of road."
Ministry of Transportation: "Budgeting of works - within a few months"
The Ministry of Transportation stated in response that according to the ministry's plan, "the upgrade of Route 65 will be budgeted, along with additional roads, upon completion of the second phase of the Ministry of Transportation's strategic road plan, in a few months."
It was also stated that "the budget for the second phase of the plan is carried out in accordance with an agreement with the Ministry of Finance, on a significant budget for the implementation of the ministry's strategic plan in the coming years. Until the strategic plan is completed,
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