Egypt–Israel border

The Taba crisis of 1906

In 1906 Egypt was in effect a British protectorate, while Palestine belonged to the Ottoman Empire.^[2] When Egypt moved to set up posts near Aqaba, the Ottomans claimed Taba, and in January 1906 an Ottoman officer threatened to fire on an Egyptian coast-guard ship if it landed there.^[1]

Britain insisted on a line from Rafah to the head of the Gulf of Aqaba, which it saw as vital to the safety of the Suez Canal. On 3 May 1906 it gave the Sultan ten days to withdraw from Taba, backed by a threat to seize Ottoman islands in the Mediterranean. Ottoman troops left Taba on 13 May.^[1]

The two sides then agreed to map a line “running approximately straight from Rafeh in a south-easterly direction to a point on the Gulf of Akaba not less than 3 miles from Akaba”. The line was agreed on 1 October 1906 and marked on the ground with pillars.^[1]

“the line of demarcation running approximately straight from Rafeh in a south-easterly direction to a point on the Gulf of Akaba not less than 3 miles from Akaba”^[1]

Mandate border, armistice line, front line

The same line became the boundary between Egypt and British-ruled Palestine; the tribunal later treated 29 September 1923 to 14 May 1948 as the Mandate period.^[1] When the Mandate ended, Israel declared independence and neighbouring armies entered Palestine. Egypt and Israel signed a General Armistice Agreement at Rhodes on 24 February 1949.^[1]

The Sinai saw fighting in 1956, 1967 and 1973, and Israel took the whole Sinai Peninsula in the Six-Day War of June 1967.^[3]

Peace, and the argument over Taba

The Treaty of Peace of 26 March 1979 ended the state of war. It made the permanent boundary “the recognized international boundary between Egypt and the former mandated territory of Palestine”, and Israel withdrew from Sinai by 25 April 1982.^[1][3]

When a joint commission came to mark the line with its nearly 100 pillars, the two countries could not agree where 14 of them stood. The most important was the last pillar, at Ras Taba on the Gulf of Aqaba.^[1] They took it to arbitration. On 29 September 1988 a five-member tribunal placed all the disputed southern pillars where Egypt said they were, by four votes to one.^[1] That made Taba Egyptian.^[4] President Hosni Mubarak raised the Egyptian flag there on 19 March 1989.^[4]

“the recognized international boundary between Egypt and the former mandated territory of Palestine”^[1]

A fence

In January 2013 Israel finished the main 230 km section of a five-metre razor-wire fence along the border, from Eilat to the Gaza Strip. It said the fence was meant to stop illegal migrants and armed groups based in Sinai.^[5]