Taba Egypt

Egypt celebrated the recovery of Taba, a strip of Sinai Desert beachfront, with martial pomp and raucous patriotic chants Wednesday a few hours after Israel lowered its flag in the dark and quietly retired from the land that it lost through international arbitration. Sandwiched between the two contrasting ceremonies, Israeli hotel workers who are losing their jobs at Taba protested by burning tires and raising an Israeli flag at a new border marker.

An Egyptian naval patrol shot and seriously wounded an Israeli man Saturday when he refused orders to stop his motorboat in Egyptian waters, Israeli police said. Egyptian and Israeli officials gave differing accounts of the incident. Foreign Ministry spokesman Allon Liel said Israel has asked Egypt for a "clarification" of the incident, which occurred in the Gulf of Aqaba, near Israel's Red Sea resort of Eilat and Egypt's Taba beach. An Egyptian coast guard official told the state-run Middle East New Agency that the boat violated Egyptian territory and that Egypt had protested to Israel.

President Hosni Mubarak, promising "there will be no more wars as of today," raised the Egyptian flag over Taba after Israel relinquished control of the disputed strip of beach on the Sinai Peninsula. Mubarak was on a European tour when the last Israeli policeman left the 250-acre strip overlooking the Gulf of Aqaba last Wednesday. Israel had retained control of Taba when it pulled out of the rest of Sinai in 1982; an international arbitration panel awarded the strip to Egypt in September.

President Hosni Mubarak, promising "there will be no more wars as of today," raised the Egyptian flag over Taba after Israel relinquished control of the disputed strip of beach on the Sinai Peninsula. Mubarak was on a European tour when the last Israeli policeman left the 250-acre strip overlooking the Gulf of Aqaba last Wednesday. Israel had retained control of Taba when it pulled out of the rest of Sinai in 1982; an international arbitration panel awarded the strip to Egypt in September.

An Egyptian naval patrol shot and seriously wounded an Israeli man Saturday when he refused orders to stop his motorboat in Egyptian waters, Israeli police said. Egyptian and Israeli officials gave differing accounts of the incident. Foreign Ministry spokesman Allon Liel said Israel has asked Egypt for a "clarification" of the incident, which occurred in the Gulf of Aqaba, near Israel's Red Sea resort of Eilat and Egypt's Taba beach. An Egyptian coast guard official told the state-run Middle East New Agency that the boat violated Egyptian territory and that Egypt had protested to Israel.

Israel and Egypt signed agreements handing sovereignty over the Taba beach strip to Egypt, ending the seven-year-old dispute over the 765-yard border strip on the Gulf of Aqaba. Under the agreements, Israel will withdraw March 15, Israel Television said. The live television broadcast showed Israeli and Egyptian officials signing four agreements, the last of which re-draws the Israeli-Egyptian border to include Taba inside Egypt.

Failure to convene an Egyptian-Israeli summit meeting tentatively scheduled for next week could deal a severe setback to hopes for progress toward Middle East peace, Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres said Friday in an interview. Peres said "time is running out" in the effort to conclude an agreement that would submit to binding arbitration a border dispute between the two countries over a sliver of beachfront called Taba.

U.S., Arab and Israeli trade ministers pledged to replace decades of conflict with free trade, regional cooperation and open markets in the Middle East. A declaration by the ministers from the United States, Israel, Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian self-rule areas, meeting in the Red Sea resort of Taba, Egypt, called for an end to all trade barriers, including the Arab boycott of Israel. The declaration also announced the establishment of a group of government experts to assist in the process.

Israel ruled out action against Egypt today over its recognition of a Palestinian state declared by the PLO's parliament-in-exile. Aides said Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir ruled out any idea of retaliating by suspending implementation of an arbitration ruling awarding the disputed border resort of Taba to Egypt.

Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres said Israel and Egypt have tentatively agreed to settle a border dispute through arbitration if their direct negotiations fail, Israel television reported. The dispute over 250 acres of beachfront at Taba on the Red Sea has clouded relations between the two countries since April, 1982, when Israel returned the last of the Sinai Peninsula--except for Taba--to Egypt under their 1979 peace treaty.

Egypt celebrated the recovery of Taba, a strip of Sinai Desert beachfront, with martial pomp and raucous patriotic chants Wednesday a few hours after Israel lowered its flag in the dark and quietly retired from the land that it lost through international arbitration. Sandwiched between the two contrasting ceremonies, Israeli hotel workers who are losing their jobs at Taba protested by burning tires and raising an Israeli flag at a new border marker.

Egypt raised its flag over Taba today, gaining back from Israel the tiny strip of beach that was captured nearly 22 years ago and completing another article of the 1979 peace treaty between the two countries. Israel's Army Radio carried the noon transfer of sovereignty live as Egyptians made their way to a flagpole carrying an Egyptian flag and shouting in Arabic "God is great!"

Failure to convene an Egyptian-Israeli summit meeting tentatively scheduled for next week could deal a severe setback to hopes for progress toward Middle East peace, Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres said Friday in an interview. Peres said "time is running out" in the effort to conclude an agreement that would submit to binding arbitration a border dispute between the two countries over a sliver of beachfront called Taba.

Jewish settlers handed lollipops to troops evicting them from a hilltop Monday, pledging to return and continue their campaign against the expansion of Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank. Their removal came as Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and PLO chief Yasser Arafat met in Taba, Egypt, to try to bridge gaps still blocking agreement on Palestinian elections and on an Israeli troop withdrawal from West Bank towns.