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 Six-Day War in 1967, and a 400-room hotel was subsequently built in the town. Following the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, Egypt and Israel started to negotiate the exact position of the border.
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. Israel claimed that Taba had been on the Ottoman side of the 1906 Ottoman-British border agreement and claimed that errors had occurred when telegraph poles were replaced by boundary pillars in 1906–1907. It therefore maintained that the written 1906 agreement should take precedence over the demarcated boundary.
After a long dispute, Abraham Sofaer, Legal Advisor to the United States State Department, successfully arbitrated an agreement to submit the issue to an international commission composed of one Israeli, one Egyptian, and three outsiders. The commission rejected Israel's arguments and found that a demarcated border accepted for so long had acquired legal standing. It ruled that the relevant boundary was the one accepted during the Mandate period and reinstated the disputed pillar at its historical location. The decision, however, did not answer how the award would be implemented, a question instead determined by further negotiations. Sofaer and the U.S. State Department led negotiations over these outstanding implementation issues, ranging from the exact locations of the pillar to the management of the hotel. By February 26, 1989, the negotiations were completed and the award was implemented. 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 were permitted to cross from Israel at the border checkpoint, and visit the "Aqaba Coast Area of Sinai",, 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 responsibility 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, as the rest of Egypt.Taba heights' temperatures are slightly cooler and it has slightly more rainy days. It receives slightly less sunshine.
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