Terrorists threw four Molotov cocktails at vehicles on Route 443, approximately two kilometers east of the intersection of Camp Ofer prison, News 0404 reported. Miraculously no one was hurt in the incident. This second main highway connecting coastal Israel with Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem is under daily attacks with Molotov cocktails, stones, and green laser beams that momentarily blind drivers.
Two weeks ago, terrorists hurled stones at vehicles near the Ben Zion interchange on Route 443 and damaged several vehicles, with one driver sustaining injuries from glass shards. Last month, Private Ziv Mizrahi was stabbed to death near a Dor Alon gas station on Route 443. A female army officer, 22, was also stabbed and injured in the same incident.
Israel’s VIP Protection Unit has warned Israeli government ministers that they should not travel on Route 443 due to escalating terror attacks. Some four years ago, Israel’s Supreme Court ordered that parts of Route 443 be reopened to Palestinian Authority traffic, ignoring experts’ warnings that the road would return to being the terror zone it had been before it was closed off to PA traffic. As things stand now, police and the military are powerless to close the road again, and all they are able to do is conduct daily chases after Arab terrorist who enjoy free access to the highway.
The ability of Arab terrorists to gain free access to Route 443 offers them the freedom to plot complex operations. In mid-July 2015, terrorists placed burning tires and a gas canister along Highway 443, about 1/2 a kilometer south of the Maccabim checkpoint, near the Arab village of Hirbhat el-Mitzbach, east of Modiin. Luckily, the incendiary device was discovered before it had a chance to blow up, the highway was shut down and sappers and the fire department were alerted. The sappers eventually blew up the gas canister in a controlled explosion, according to police.