Further information:

A few months after this edit, another user added way 1303446953as a replacement for the deleted way 1234277959 way 1234298083.

Then, 3 months ago, in changeset 162577061 user yanivzelig created relation 18713626 and used the replacement way 1303446953 as one of its members, effectively confirming the existence of that path.

As a result of the above, and the existence of recent GPS traces, I have reverted this changeset and the replacement ways that it caused.