The Supreme Court accepted the appeals against the construction of the fence on the village Bil'in's land and has sent the State officials back to come up with another route.

The residents of Bil'in and the Mayor of Billin claiming that the fence prevented the residents from reaching their agricultural lands launched the appeal.

In her ruling the Supreme Court president, Judge Beinish, noted the impact of the Mattiyahu east neighborhood. Rejecting the government's argument, Beinish wrote in her decision that "We were not convinced that it is necessary for security-military reasons to retain the current route that passes on Bil'in's lands."  In January 2006 Peace Now appealed against the illegal construction of the Matityahu East neighborhood of Modi'in Illit.

The grounds for the Peace Now's petition became clear during work carried out jointly by two organizations, B'Tselem and Bimkom, which resulted in a detailed report on the issue of the expansion of the settlement located to the West of the path of the separation fence, work which is carried out under the guise of constructing the fence.  In the report, entitled “Under the guise of security – expansion of settlements as an obstacle to the separation”, they show how sections of the path of the fence (which is constructed east of the Green Line) correspond to the outline plans and the master plans, parts of which never followed the legal procedures for approval.  The authors’ main argument is that this is completely counter to the government’s claim that these are security considerations and that in fact, the only considerations that led to determining the course of the obstacle were the development plans of the adjacent settlements.  In actual fact, the authors feel that these considerations were actually the determining factor for significant portions of the path, while security considerations were only an excuse used to cover this fact up.

As a result of this appeal the Supreme Court ordered a freeze of all construction in the neighborhood and forbid the population of the apartments already completed.

The infamous company Hefzibah, is one of the construction companies involved in this illegal project in the neighborhood

For the report in Haaretz
For the report in Ynetnews