Senior Civil Administration officials placed red signs forbidding the entry of Israelis at the entrance to the Samaria town of Huwara. The signs falsely claim that the road is in Area A. Similar signs are a common sight at the entrance to many Palestinian Arab towns in Area A in Judea and Samaria, warning that entry is illegal and mortally dangerous to Israelis.
Residents of the region protested that the closure of the road to Israeli traffic would leave them unable to travel outside of their immediate area in Samaria. The road forms the main route by which a large portion of Samaria can access the highways to Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and the Jordan Valley.
The road has also been the scene of several terrorist attacks, including the murder of the Yaniv brothers. Construction of a road bypassing the hostile town was halted by MK Merav Michaeli, (Labor) transportation minister in the Bennett-Lapid government, and although work was resumed by the current minister MK Miri Regev (Likud) it has not yet been completed.
The head of the Samaria Council, Yossi Dagan, announced that if the signs are not removed within two hours, he will come officially as the head of the Samaria Council to remove them himself, "It turns out that there are senior officials who have learned almost nothing from the massacre that took place in the south, and not only did they not reform their policies, they have implemented them further in a step I am certain will cause danger to the users of this road."
"If these revolting signs are not removed within two hours, I, as head of the Samaria Regional Council, will arrive myself in an official manner and remove the signs in broad daylight. No one will abandon the safety of the residents of Samaria! Not on my shift! The blood of the people of Samaria will not be wasted!"
A short while after Dagan's declaration, residents of the region defaced the signs with graffiti and knocked them over.
A statement from the IDF denied knowledge of the signs' origin or of who had placed them. An IDF engineering vehicle arrived to remove the signs from the area.