A fifth foreign contractor has withdrawn from the project to build a cable car linking West and East Jerusalem. Local authorities maintain that the project is proceeding according to plan.
Activists warn that the project threatens the land and property rights of dozens of Palestinian families along the route. The project appeared stalled for four years until late September, when the Jerusalem Development Authority (JDA) issued a notice of intent to award the contract without a public tender to the firm ROPES.
ROPES is a cable car engineering consultancy based in South Tyrol, Italy. Its chief executive, Stephan Obexer, told the Guardian that his company had declined the job due to another commitment in India. The notice was issued just weeks before the Israeli elections on 27 October.
The cable car route is 1.4km long. The Israeli government approved it in 2019, and the High Court of Justice upheld the decision in 2022. The route is intended to connect West Jerusalem with a planned 16,000 square metre tourism complex promoted by Elad, a settler organisation seeking to entrench Israeli control over Palestinian areas in occupied East Jerusalem.
The Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories began in 1967, and the Old City and the rest of the eastern half of Jerusalem were fully annexed in 1980. Under international law, they remain considered occupied territory. The International Court of Justice has ruled that Israel’s presence in occupied East Jerusalem is illegal.
According to the organisation Emek Shaveh, the JDA has recently accelerated plans for the long-delayed cable car. Former Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat described the project as a way for visitors to "understand who really owns the city". Emek Shaveh states that the project endangers Palestinian communities and the landscape of Jerusalem’s historic core. Its central motivation, they claim, is to consolidate settler oversight of these areas.
At least four foreign firms – three French and one Swiss – had expressed interest in the project, but several withdrew due to political sensitivity, according to Haaretz. The French government called on one firm not to participate in 2015. Another French firm, CNA, withdrew less than a year ago, and Swiss firm Histec Engineering recently did the same. ROPES did not respond to a request for a written statement or questions on whether legal concerns influenced their decision. The JDA did not respond to a Guardian request for comment.
A JDA spokesperson told Haaretz that the cable car is continuing to proceed according to plan and within the set deadlines. This is, he said, after the High Court of Justice dismissed petitions against the project approximately a year and a half ago. According to him, the steps to advance the project are subject to the law on mandatory tenders. The tender is expected to be ready for publication in the coming months, once its formulation is completed.
The move has sparked protests from Israeli heritage and environmental groups, as well as Palestinians in Silwan, a neighbourhood in East Jerusalem at the foot of the Old City. Protesters warn that the project endangers Palestinian heritage in an area they consider part of a future state. They also claim that the cable cars would pass just metres above their homes.
Archaeologist and Emek Shaveh executive director Alon Arad said that the cable car is in direct contradiction to the historic principle that no large buildings or infrastructure should be constructed around the Old City. He is particularly concerned that the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, the body responsible for enforcing that principle, is involved in the project. Arad added that the route begins in West Jerusalem and ends in a complex led by the far-right settler organisation Elad Foundation. The project costs the state approximately half a billion shekels, he said. Elad, he added, is known for using state funds to promote a political programme in East Jerusalem, seizing Palestinian properties, evicting families and settling Jewish residents in their place. The Elad Foundation does not appear to be formally involved in the project and did not respond to a Guardian request for comment.
According to legal advocacy groups, the cable car project directly threatens around 54 Palestinian homes along its route in the Wadi Hilweh neighbourhood of Silwan. It includes the expropriation of land or air rights.
