Highway 4 (Israel)

Highway 4 (Israel)

Highway 4 (Hebrew: כּֽבִישׁ אַרְבַּע, Kvish Arba' ) is an Israeli highway that runs along Israel's entire coastal plain of the Mediterranean Sea, its route in the north runs from the Rosh HaNikra border crossing with Lebanon until the Erez Border Crossing with the Gaza Strip. The highway follows in part the route of the ancient Via Maris.

Until the 1990s and the withdrawal of Israel Defense Forces from most of the Gaza Strip due to the Oslo Accords, Highway 4 continued all the way until Rafah and the Egyptian border. The part of the remaining highway in the Gaza Strip is called Salah al-Din Road.

Although the highway is continuous, it is generally considered to be divided into five sections, each with its own nickname and characteristics such as a differing number of lanes and speed limits:

• Northern Coastal Highway (Rosh Hanikra–Haifa). This section passes through the Krayot, Acre and Nahariya in Northern Israel. The southern third of the highway bisects the Krayot area and is extremely traffic congested at times. For this reason, a new bypass road, Highway 22, is being built several kilometers to the east of Highway 4.
• Old Haifa–Tel Aviv Highway (Haifa–Ra'anana). Commonly referred to in Israel as The Old Highway (Hebrew: "הכביש הישן") while Highway 2 is sometimes called The New Highway. This section was originally built by the British to allow Jewish traffic from Tel-Aviv to Haifa to bypass the Arab towns of Qalqilyah and Tulkarm during the 1936-39 violence, making it the first bypass road in the country.
• Geha Highway, or First President Road (Ra'anana–Azor). This functions as an important arterial road in the eastern portion of the Tel Aviv Metropolitan Area.
• Tel Aviv–Ashdod Highway (Azor–Ashdod)
• Southern Coastal Highway (Ashdod–Erez Crossing)

The Tel Aviv - Ashdod and Geha sections are freeways.