Taba, Egypt

Taba ( ', ) is a town in the South Sinai of Egypt, near the northern tip of the Gulf of Aqaba. Taba is the location of one of Egypt's busiest border crossings. It is the northernmost resort of Egypt's Red Sea Riviera.

History

In 1906, Taba became the center of a territorial dispute between the British Empire and the Ottoman Empire, known as the " Taba Crisis." Although the Sinai Peninsula was nominally Ottoman, it had been largely administered by Egypt, except for the Aqaba region, which had been officially under Ottoman administration since 1892. When the Ottomans began plans to extend the Hejaz railway to the Gulf of Aqaba, potentially challenging British influence in the Red Sea via the Suez Canal, Britain dispatched Lieutenant Bramly with a small Egyptian force to establish police stations in the region. Upon encountering Ottoman troops already positioned in Taba — territory the British claimed as Egyptian — they demanded the immediate evacuation of Taba. The Ottomans refused, threatening to open fire, which led the British to deploy the battleship Diana to the area. After several months of escalating tensions that threatened to spark an international conflict, with Taba as the only place the British considered Egyptian that the Ottomans refused to evacuate, Sultan Abdul Hamid II finally agreed to withdraw from Taba on 13 May 1906. Both the British and the Ottomans then agreed to demarcate a formal border that would run approximately straight from Rafah in a south-easterly direction to a point on the Gulf of Aqaba, not less than from Aqaba. The border was initially marked with telegraph poles and these were later replaced by boundary pillars.

Taba was located on the Egyptian side of the armistice line in 1949. During the Tripartite Aggression in 1956, it was briefly occupied by Israel but restored to Egypt when the Israelis retreated in 1957. Israel reoccupied Taba after the June War in 1967, and subsequently, a 400-room hotel was built in the town. Following the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, Egypt and Israel were negotiating the exact position of the border, Israel claimed that Taba had been on the Ottoman side of a border agreed between the Ottomans and British Egypt in 1906 and had, therefore, been in error in its two previous agreements. After a long dispute, the issue was submitted to an international commission composed of one Israeli, one Egyptian, and three outsiders.

Both parties agreed that all maps since 1915, except for one 1916 Turkish-German map, show Taba on the Egyptian side and that no dispute had previously been raised on the issue in the intervening years. However, Israel claimed that errors had been made when the telegraph poles were replaced by boundary pillars in 1906–1907 and that the written 1906 agreement rather than its demarcation with boundary pillars was the legal border. The commission rejected the Israeli claim that the boundary pillars were in error but in any case held that a demarcated boundary accepted by all parties for such a long time had achieved legal status. Based on the wording of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty, the commission ruled that the accepted border during the Mandate period was the one that counted, though it rejected that that border was different from the earlier border. Of special concern was the final boundary pillar near the Gulf of Aqaba, which had disappeared. There are early photographs of a pillar north-east of Taba, but Israel claimed that it had been placed in error. The commission rejected Israel's case and positioned the pillar at its historical location.

Therefore, Egypt and Israel resumed negotiations which ended in February 1989 and as a result, Taba was returned to Egypt. Hosni Mubarak raised the Egyptian flag on the town on 19 March 1989. As part of this subsequent agreement, travelers are permitted to cross from Israel at the border checkpoint, and visit the "Aqaba Coast Area of Sinai", (stretching from Taba down to Sharm El Sheikh, and including Nuweiba, Saint Catherine's Monastery, and Dahab), visa-free for up to 14 days, making Taba a popular tourist destination. The resort community of Taba Heights is located some south of Taba. It features several large hotels, including the Hyatt Regency, Marriott, Sofitel, and Intercontinental. It is also a significant diving area where many people come to either free dive, scuba dive, or learn to dive via the many diving courses available. Other recreation facilities include a new desert-style golf course.

On 24 September 1995, the Taba Agreement was signed by the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Israeli government in the town of Taba.

On 7 October 2004, the Hilton Taba was hit by a bomb that killed 34 people. Of the deaths, over 20 were Israeli, 5 were Egyptian and 1 Russian, along with many injured Israelis. Twenty-four days later, an inquiry by the Egyptian Interior Ministry into the bombings concluded that the perpetrators received no external help but were aided by Bedouins in the peninsula.

In February 2014, a bus taking tourists to Saint Catherine's Monastery in Sinai exploded in Taba as the bus was preparing to cross into Israel. Three South Koreans and one Egyptian were killed, and 14 South Koreans were injured. No group took responsibly for the blast.

Israeli tourism in Taba was up in 2016 with many traveling to enjoy the northernmost Red Sea resort.

On 27 October 2023, a drone crashed into a building next to a hospital. Six people were lightly injured. The six people would be discharged from the hospital after receiving the necessary first aid.

Geography

Climate

Köppen-Geiger climate classification system classifies its climate as hot desert (BWh), as the rest of Egypt.

Taba heights' temperatures are slightly cooler and it has slightly more rainy days. It receives slightly less sunshine.

Taba Protected Area

Located just southwest of Taba is a protected area, including geological formations such as caves, a string of valleys, and mountainous passages. There are also some natural springs in the area. The area has 25 species of mammals, 50 species of rare birds, and 24 species of reptiles.Taba Protected Area of Egypt
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Transportation

Since Taba existed only as a small Bedouin village, there was never any real transportation infrastructure. More recently, Al Nakb Airport, located on the Sinai plateau some from Taba, was upgraded and renamed Taba International Airport (IATA: TCP, ICAO: HETB), and now handles half a dozen charter flights a week from the UK as well as weekly charter flights from Belgium, Russia, Denmark, and the Netherlands. Some tourists enter via the Taba Border Crossing and a marina has been built in the new Taba Heights development, some south of Taba, and which has frequent ferry sailings to Aqaba in Jordan, although these are restricted to tourists on organised tours.

Gallery

Image:Taba_border_crossing_-_Egyptian_side.jpg, Taba Border Crossing
Image:Taba_border.jpg, Taba Border Crossing (December 2010)
File:Taba-Egypt.JPG, Taba from Space
File:Aqaba Castle.jpg, Saladin's Citadel
File:DL2A---Club-Med-Taba-Sinai-Bay-Egypte-ok-(38).png, Taba Sinai Bay
File:Taba Aerial photo.jpg, Taba Aerial photo
File:Hotel_Hilton_-_Taba_-_panoramio.jpg, Hilton Taba
File:DL2A---Club-Med-Taba-Sinai-Bay-Egypte-ok-(36).png, Club Méditerranée Taba

See also

* Cultural tourism in Egypt
* Ras Muhammad National Park
* Taba Summit

References

External links

Photographical Impressions


Taba at Google Earth

Orascom Development (Taba Heights)

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National parks of Egypt
Populated coastal places in Egypt
Underwater diving sites in Egypt
Populated places in South Sinai Governorate
Tourism in Egypt
Red Sea
Seaside resorts in Egypt
Tourist attractions in Egypt
Egypt–Israel border crossings
Former Israeli settlements in Sinai