BEIT IKSA, West Bank — A high-speed train between two major cities seems like a must for a developed nation. But Israel’s long-awaited, $2 billion Tel Aviv-Jerusalem railway is turning into a potential political nightmare after planners moved parts of the route into the West Bank.

The route dips twice into the war-won territory, at one point as a short cut and at another to appease Israelis who objected to tracks in their backyard.

Critics say that violates international law because the construction has seized occupied Palestinian land and won’t serve West Bankers.

The Palestinian self-rule government will “resort to all legal and possible diplomatic methods to try to end this violation of Palestinian rights,” spokesman Ghassan Khatib said. He called on foreign companies to withdraw from the project.

Companies from Italy and Russia, the latter state-owned, are helping build the line, and a subsidiary of Germany’s state railway provided a technical opinion for one segment, albeit inside Israel, according to Israel Railways.

Any project that deepens Israel’s hold over West Bank lands would appear to run counter to long-held positions of the European Union and Russia, both members of the Quartet of Mideast mediators. The Palestinians want to establish a state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, lands Israel captured in 1967, and the United States is trying to get the two sides into negotiations for a peace deal creating a state.

Israeli government officials say they have taken steps to ensure that the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem line would one day benefit Palestinians. Transport Ministry spokesman Avner Ovadiah said planning has begun on an extension that would connect Gaza with the city of Ramallah, the West Bank’s center of commerce and government. The West Bank and Gaza lie on opposite sides of Israel, and most of that line would run through Israeli territory.

But researcher Dalit Baum said that idea is “a cynical ploy that is only suggested in order to justify this train route as legal.” Baum wrote a report on the project published this week by an Israeli watchdog group, the Coalition of Women for Peace.

Most of the 6-kilometer (3.75 mile) stretch of the railway inside the West Bank runs through tunnels.

Source: Associated Press