Word: eilat
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...strategic significance. It played a major part in the events leading to the Six-Day War. At that time, Gamal Abdel Nasser threatened that Egyptian artillery at Sharm el Sheikh would sink any ship that ventured into the narrow Straits of Tiran en route to the Israeli port of Eilat, 130 miles to the north, which handles all of Israel's oil imports. Soon afterward, Israeli paratroopers and amphibious forces captured the fortifications. In the 1956 Sinai campaign, the Israelis took and then returned Sharm el Sheikh; this time they intend to keep it, even though it is their...
...present civilian population is about 500, nearly all male. Of these, 100 are construction workers who have been building military installations and a new road to Eilat. "We're here if they want us to build houses too," says Supervisor Avraham Calev. Some of his workers have already joined the waiting list for government-supplied housing. One, Avraham Freedman, mused about the future. "Look at the lights shining on the Caravan Hotel," he said. "It's almost like Chicago." I saw only one string of lights, but Freedman was sincere. "Trust the Israelis; one day it will...
...reluctant about reaching peace, an overwhelming 86% favor the annexation of the Golan Heights, from which Syrian artillery regularly shelled Israeli kibbutzim before the war. And 72% are for keeping Sharm el Sheikh, from which Egyptian gunners in the past turned back ships bound for the Israeli port of Eilat. About the only territory that significant numbers of Israelis are generally prepared to let go is the sandy western Sinai desert. Yet even here, only 18% are willing to give the captured desert back to Egypt, while 29% favor annexation, and 38% propose neutralizing the territory as a buffer zone...
SINAI: To the line from El Arish near the Mediterranean to Sharm el Sheikh at the juncture of the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea. Israel would insist on a presence at Sharm el Sheikh, where it is developing a sizable community, to protect passage to Eilat. Defense Minister Moshe Dayan will fight for mutual withdrawal of both Israel and Egypt from the banks of the Suez Canal. Should the Israelis consent to a unilateral withdrawal of ten to twelve miles from the canal, however, they may insist on a proviso that if one Egyptian soldier crosses the canal...
...Battlefields. The biggest adventure of a border tour occurs along the 170-mile road from Eilat to Sharm el Sheikh at the confluence of the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea. All but about 50 miles of the highway have been completed; the immense effort being expended cannot be for any other purpose than to keep a permanent Israeli presence on the western side of the Gulf of Aqaba. When the road is finished, Israeli tourists will speed in three hours through the pink and purple Sinai mountains that it took commandos in 1956 three days to cross...