A new highway, aimed at substantially alleviating traffic congestion in the entrances to and exits from Jerusalem, will not open until repairs are made to environmental and landscape damages caused by the paving of the road.

The Jerusalem District Court on Monday received a petition, filed by the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, seeking to prevent the highway from being opened.

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The Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel demanded, via attorney Yuval Lester, the highway remain closed because the Moriah company, which is under the authority of the Jerusalem municipality, had not yet completed rehabilitating the environmental damage surrounding the highway, as it had pledged to do. The judge ordered Moriah to pay all the Society for the Protection of Nature's court fees ? some NIS 30,000.

Highway 9, which was recently completed, passes through the Arazim valley, most of which is protected by preservation laws and is slated to be a metropolitan park. The highway will connect between the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway and the northern and eastern parts of Jerusalem.

A Jerusalem District Court judge ruled that the fact that the cleanup and rehabilitation of the construction damage were not carried out cannot be disputed.

Moriah also failed to erect a fence meant to prevent deer and other wild animals from entering the highway, which would endanger both the animals and the drivers. They were supposed to build passageways under the highway specifically for the animals. The company also failed to clean up piles of dirt and did not complete building drains.

Moriah asked that the highway open immediately because of its necessity, and that repairs can resume after its opening. However, the judge rejected the request, saying that in the plan for the paving of the road, it is clearly cited that repairing environmental damage caused by the paving is a condition for the highway opening.

"There is no doubt that it is in the public's interest to open the highway for traffic, but there is also in the public's interest to preserve the nature and the rehabilitation of the Arazim valley," the judge wrote in the ruling.