Top-bottom, left-right: Pharaoh's Island, Fjord Bay, Saladin's Citadel walls, Fjord Bay's rest, Hilton Taba, Taba Heights, Panoramic view from the Red Sea, Egyptian flag
In 1906, Taba became the center of a territorial dispute between the British 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.[2][3] When the Ottomans began plans to extend the Hejaz railway to the Gulf of Aqaba,[4] potentially challenging British dominance in the Red Sea via the Suez Canal,[5] 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[6] — they demanded the immediate evacuation of Taba. The Ottomans refused, threatening to open fire,[7] 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,[8] with Taba as the only place the British considered Egyptian that the Ottomans refused to evacuate,[9]Sultan Abdul Hamid II finally agreed to withdraw from Taba on 13 May 1906. Both Britain and the Ottoman Empire 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 5 kilometres (3 mi) from Aqaba.[10][11] The border was initially marked with telegraph poles and these were later replaced by boundary pillars.[10]
Taba was located on the Egyptian side of the armistice line agreed to in 1949. During the Suez Crisis in 1956, it was briefly occupied by Israel but returned to Egypt when the country withdrew in 1957. Israel reoccupied the Sinai Peninsula after the Six-Day War in 1967, and subsequently, a 400-room hotel was built in Taba. Following the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian 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.[10]
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.[10] However, Israel contended 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.[10] The commission did not accept 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.[10] 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 did not accept that that border was different from the earlier border.[10] Of special concern was the final boundary pillar near the Gulf of Aqaba, which had disappeared.[10] There are early photographs of a pillar north-east of Taba, but Israel contended that it had been placed in error.[10] The commission did not accept Israel's case and positioned the pillar at its historical location.[10]
Therefore, Israel and Egypt 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 Eilat–Taba 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 20 km (12 mi) 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 October 7, 2004, the Hilton Taba was hit by a bomb that killed 34 people including several Israelis.[12] 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 on the peninsula.[13]
Despite warnings, tourism from Israel to Taba was up in 2016 with many traveling to enjoy the northernmost Red Sea resort.[16]
On 27 October 2023 a drone, most probably launched by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels from Yemen on its way to Israel, crashed near a hospital building injuring six people.[17][18][19]
Fjord Bay, a rare coastal shark breeding site, has been preserved and closed to tourists
Located just southwest of Taba is a 3,590 km2 (1,386 sq mi) 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.[24]
Transportation
Flag Plaza Square, Taba
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 35 kilometres (22 miles) 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. Many tourists enter via the Taba Border Crossing from Eilat, Israel and a marina has been built in the new Taba Heights development, some 20 km (12 miles) south of Taba, and which has frequent ferry sailings to Aqaba in Jordan, although these are restricted to tourists on organised tours.
^Burman, John (2009). "British Strategic Interests versus Ottoman Sovereign Rights: New Perspectives on the Aqaba Crisis, 1906". The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. 37 (2): 285 f. doi:10.1080/03086530903010384.
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