The head-on traffic accident yesterday evening (Wednesday) in which 6-year-old Matan Zinman was killed managed to shock the country, but the residents of Judea and Samaria know how to tell that this is a daily reality of lawlessness on the roads.
A few traffic vehicles operate in Yosh, a huge area with roads that are not adapted to the traffic load, and Palestinian drivers who do whatever they can.
Absurdly, even today, the Israeli authorities do not count the dead and injured Palestinians in accidents, which means that bright red roads are not recognized as such.
Throwing responsibility between the police, the CBS and the RLB leads to the fact that there is no body that to this day provides information on the number of Palestinian accidents and casualties - which is much higher on the Israeli side.
Diving into the accident data from 2021 proves how serious and dangerous the problem is.
The police data provided to us by the Or Yerok association shows that 38 people were killed in Judea and Samaria last year, and 1,011 were injured. However, an examination of the Palestinian police data shows that in the same year 133 more people were killed on Yosh roads, including no 11,043 Palestinian casualties were recorded in 2021, unimaginable numbers.
It should be noted that not all Palestinian deaths were in traffic accidents on roads that are also shared by Israelis, because there are many apartheid roads where Israelis are not allowed to travel.
The spokesman for the Palestinian police recently said that between 60 and 65 percent of the victims of road accidents were killed on what he defined as "external roads" - that is, those over which he has no control.
Sources involved in the matter point out that the Palestinian drivers, who are afraid of the PA policemen, drive in a much safer manner on roads that are forbidden to Israelis, but when they go out onto the main roads of Yosh, under Israeli control, with minimal to non-existent enforcement, they allow any restraint. Also a spokesman The Palestinian police said similar things. "The external roads are not equipped with traffic standards, and the driver feels unsupervised and commits traffic offenses such as dangerous detours, using the cell phone and excessive speed."
The figures do not bode well this year either.
So far, 16 people have been killed on Yosh roads according to the Israeli police.
As of last May, 57 more people were killed on the Palestinian side.
Looking at the Palestinian data, it appears that many of the victims are small children.
In 2021, 795 children under the age of 7 were injured on the Palestinian side. Another 1301 were between the ages of 7 and 18.
"Every trip on Judea and Samaria roads is a bet on life," says attorney Yaniv Ya'akov, CEO of Or Yerok Association. "The reality is a lack of basic conditions such as police vehicles, separation barriers and even traffic signs that lead to an increased risk of being injured in a traffic accident.
The State of Israel must decide that the Judea and Samaria roads are just like all the other roads under its control and take responsibility for what is done on them.
Route 55 is the same as Route 1 and Route 60 is the same as Route 20. We must stop this failure that has been going on for years and claims the lives of dozens of people every year and causes more than a thousand people to be injured."
The data of the Palestinian Authority also allow a look at the areas where more traffic accidents occur. In the Ramallah area last year there were 3,200 accidents, and in the Nablus area there were 2,703 traffic accidents. In Hebron there were 1,984 traffic accidents and in the Bethlehem area there were 1,066 traffic accidents. The Tulkarm district suffered 849 Road accidents and in the Kalkilia area 319 road accidents.
Only a quarter of the fines given to the Palestinians have been paid
The main problem is that in Israel these roads are not treated properly, where hundreds of thousands of cars travel every day.
In a report by the Knesset's research institute written at the request of MK Orit Struck, it was revealed that only a quarter of the fines given to Palestinian drivers have been paid, and the actions required by law to enforce the payment are not carried out.
By the end of 2021, nearly 410,000 unpaid traffic fines had been imposed on Palestinian drivers, and the total of unpaid fines is about NIS 275 million.
It was also revealed that the amount of fines being paid is decreasing.
The data from the Ministry of Transportation's safety mobility reports indicate a huge gap in the condition of Palestinian vehicles in Israel compared to the national average: only 14.7% of the Palestinian vehicles tested were found to be in good condition, compared to 51.2% of the national average, 2.9% of which were defined as dangerous at a level that requires immediate removal from the road, compared to 0.3% in the national average, and 47.5% of them were defined as requiring repair within a day, compared to 13.2% nationally.
Police enforcement in Yosh is deficient, among other things, because, according to the report, in practice there is no personnel dedicated to enforcing traffic laws in Yosh district. The national traffic police, which is responsible for enforcement on intercity roads in all districts, does not operate in Yosh district, and Enforcement on these roads - where most accidents occur - falls on the district's traffic unit (ATN), which in other districts is only responsible for traffic within the settlements.
However, even this unit, whose manpower is much smaller than required (according to the police's own answer in the report), is not only involved in enforcing traffic laws, but also in a variety of other tasks - including 100 escorts per year of the PA chairman, public order tasks, investigations and more.
"The neglect of the issue of road safety in Yosh by all the parties - takes a toll on human life," says MK Orit Struck, who initiated the serious report.
"This is a continuous disdain for the existing procedures and criteria, while all the seemingly solvable obstacles. It is necessary to immediately return to holding 'round tables' with all the governing bodies in the Yash, and to give a response, at the very least, by comparing the tools and rules to what is customary in the small and sovereign State of Israel."
Residents of Yosh agree that many times the traffic police, whose role is to stop life-threatening crimes, operate in relatively safe areas, in order to catch drivers for speeding violations. During a random drive by an "Israel Hayom" reporter this week in the south of Mount Hebron, a policeman was seen catching drivers who were driving on the road Straight and safe because they were driving at high speed. This is of course a problematic offense, but less so compared to, for example, overtaking on a white line that can end in a head-on accident and death.
"The reality at the moment - zero enforcement against Yosh Arabs"
The former Minister of Transportation, MK Bezalel Smotritz, pointed this morning to the series of failures that occur in Yosh.
"The reality at the moment is zero enforcement against the Arabs of Judea and Samaria. Anyone who travels on the roads of Israel has experienced first-hand the culture of Arab driving on the roads and the huge infrastructure gaps and immediately understands that there is no law and justice. The current reality is the result of many years in which the roads of Judea and Samaria fell into disrepair Between the chairs. In the Ministry of Transportation, the responsibility was transferred to the Ministry of Defense and from the Ministry of Defense to the Ministry of Transportation, while the traffic police does not operate at all in Judea and Samaria and the Shia district is budgeted with a large shortage of police officers and traffic vehicles.
"In my role as Minister of Transportation, I took responsibility for the ministry, and indeed during this period we launched the construction of the bypasses in Hawara and El-Arov, we embarked on the planning of the doubling of Highway 60, and we initiated the implementation of traffic lights at many dangerous intersections. Unfortunately, in the last government under left-wing minister Merav Michaeli, the trend reversed and roads And the residents of Judea and Samaria returned to the reality of criminal neglect," he said.
Former member of the Knesset Shuli Mualem, who is running in the Likud primaries in the Yush district, said that "Palestinian terrorism on the roads is killing us."
We must put an end to it.
The death of the late 6-year-old Matan Zinman must become a red light and the beginning of correction. Many citizens have been suffering from terrorism on the roads for months.
The main reason for this is the lack of governance in the Yosh. There is no law and no justice. I am announcing in the clearest way: I will take this issue on myself personally."
were we wrong
We will fix it!
If you found an error in the article, we would appreciate it if you shared it with us
