Israel & the West Bank

Israeli plates yellow with blue strip left (also common in the West Bank)

Yellow+blue-strip plates are specific to Israel - Jordan and the UAE use white plates, Tunisia black; but the design also dominates in the West Bank (same page here).

Jordan: Yellow + blue strip → Israel; white → Jordan.

Tunisia: Yellow → Israel; black → Tunisia.

United Arab Emirates: Yellow + blue strip → Israel; white → UAE.

Most Gen3: black car with long antenna (also black w/o antenna, silver w/ short antenna)

Hebrew (practically only here) + Arabic (esp. West Bank)

Landscape: greener Mediterranean north → very arid south

Bright, warm stone buildings, blocky; orange tiled roofs commoner than elsewhere in the Middle East, flat roofs equally common

Most roads: yellow outer + white centre lines; striped kerbs everywhere (red-white, black-white; rarely red-yellow, blue-white)

United Arab Emirates: White plates + desert + Gulf architecture → UAE; Hebrew → Israel.

Jordan: White plates + Arabic-only → Jordan.

Both A-type and B-type guardrails common

Turkey: Turkish (dotless ı) vs Hebrew script.

Chevrons white on black; km markers white with thick red/green/blue border; stop sign shows a hand instead of a word

The hand stop sign is a strong tell - but check for Hebrew to be safe (a few other countries use symbol stop signs on private roads).

Poles: black-white striped painted bottoms + very common mesh-framework poles; yellow warning sign on poles

Coverage: sparse in southern Israel + most of the West Bank; area codes map (only mapped codes are regional)

Gen4 only in Israel (black car); mostly a dirty front camera - clean camera ≈ Tel Aviv area

North = mountainous, green, forested; centre = flat, urban, better highways; south + eastern West Bank = extremely dry/sandy; west of Jerusalem looks like the north - but always hilly (no wide flat valleys) + Jerusalem-stone houses; West Bank = semi-arid Mediterranean, hillier & less agricultural than central Israel

Jerusalem stone: nearly every building in Jerusalem + nearby West Bank cities (smoother on new buildings; single such houses exist elsewhere)

Date-palm plantations near the Jordanian border; cemented rock walls in the north; small irrigation canals around Beit She'an

Water bodies: Dead Sea = surrounded by total dryness (also visible from Jordan/West Bank); Sea of Galilee = noticeably vegetated; Mount Carmel = long NW-SE ridge near Haifa (green, high-altitude coverage on top); Mount Gilboa = very dry from afar, green on top

West Bank plates: white w/ green text (blurred = green tint); taxis/buses inverted (green w/ white); Israeli plates also common there

West Bank follow cars: small white Suzuki → centre/south; dark-blue Ford → northwest; big white Citroën 'SECURITY' → around Jerusalem (Bethlehem, Ramallah; always with antenna-less black car)

Roadsides full of parked cars (free spots → probably the north of the city)

White rectangular signs with a thin blue border

Jericho: date palms in sparse, poor-looking urban setting; Ramallah: sheer mass of black water tanks on most houses; Bethlehem: blue house numbers w/ Arabic + Eastern-Arabic numerals split by a diagonal

Road/mountain spotlights: Road 90 (longest) = dry + N-S angle (≈ roads 31/40!), southern stretch has a dry range east + palms; Road 2 = Mediterranean visible west (mountains east → Haifa↔Zikhron Yaakov); Mount Tavor = soft round shape; Timna NP = total dryness + ridges all around; tall rocky mountains east of Eilat; camel-back range → Kiryat Shmona; reservoir north of Hasolelim forest; tall coastal chimneys north of Netanya

City-unique infra: Harish grey mosaic tower brickwork; Nahariya 3-arm white lamps; Acre 'Barad-dûr' lamps (central-Israel lookalikes lack the horn gap); Netivot angular high+low lamps; Eilat blue-white pole bottoms; Kiryat Motzkin yellow fences/posts; Ashdod blue-white fences; Raanana thick/cube roundabout signs; Rahat grey Hyundai follow car

House-number metas: Rosh Haayin = blue w/ G-clef; Ness Ziona = Israeli flag; Herzliya = blue shield shape; Bnei Brak = ultra-Orthodox religious clothing on the street

Israel National Trail: one of the world's longest trekkers, through every landscape; orange-blue-white trail markings