# The Strait of Tiran
> The 6-km passage between the Sinai Peninsula and the Arabian Peninsula that is the sole Red Sea gateway to Israel's port of Eilat and Jordan's port of Aqaba, and whose disputed islands are a lever in Saudi-Israeli normalization talks.

**Meta:** type: reference · date: 2026-07-03 · heads:  · 4 takes · 2 lenses · 2 regions

## What it is

The Strait of Tiran is a narrow sea passage linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba, located between the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula and the coast of the Arabian Peninsula. At its narrowest it is roughly 6 km wide. Two channels carry large-vessel traffic: the Enterprise Passage, 290 metres deep on the Sinai side, and the Grafton Passage, 73 metres deep on the eastern side. A third passage on the Saudi side reaches only 16 metres and is not commercially navigable.

The strait is the only sea route to Jordan's port of Aqaba and Israel's port of Eilat, making it one of the world's smaller but geopolitically outsized chokepoints. Two uninhabited islands, Tiran and Sanafir, sit at the strait's entrance; their sovereignty has drawn Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the United States into repeated negotiations.

## History

Egypt first barred Israeli vessels from the strait in 1950, a posture it maintained intermittently until the Suez Crisis of 1956. The critical confrontation came in May 1967, when President Gamal Abdel Nasser reimposed a naval blockade barring Israeli-flagged ships and oil tankers bound for Eilat. Israeli leaders described this as an act of war; Israel launched preemptive strikes on June 5, 1967, beginning the Six-Day War. Israel occupied Tiran, Sanafir, and the entire Sinai Peninsula by June 8. The strait remained under Israeli military control until 1982, when Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt under the terms of the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty, which guaranteed Israeli vessels permanent freedom of navigation through both the strait and the Suez Canal.

A Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) mission, around 1,700 personnel including approximately 450 Americans, was stationed partly on Tiran Island to monitor compliance with the Camp David framework.

In April 2016, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi announced that Egypt would transfer sovereignty over Tiran and Sanafir to Saudi Arabia, in exchange for a Saudi aid package worth tens of billions of dollars. The Egyptian parliament ratified the deal in June 2017, but the physical handover has not been completed since, stalled over disputes about surveillance camera arrangements to replace the MFO, and over Cairo's expectation of additional financial assistance.

## Current state

As of mid-2026, the transfer of Tiran and Sanafir to Saudi Arabia is legally ratified by Egypt but not physically executed. Saudi Arabia has formally committed to honoring the navigation guarantees Egypt gave Israel under the 1979 treaty. In July 2022, Israel signaled its agreement to the transfer terms as part of a US-brokered framework, removing what had been described as the last Israeli objection. The MFO remains on the islands pending resolution of replacement surveillance arrangements.

Saudi-Israeli normalization talks, which had treated Tiran navigation guarantees as an early confidence-building measure, paused after the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, and have not formally resumed as of mid-2026. The strait was not directly targeted by Houthi forces during their 2023-2024 Red Sea shipping campaign, which focused on the Bab el-Mandeb corridor further south (see [Houthis hold fire on Red Sea shipping, but threaten to choke Bab el-Mandeb if war reignites](/en/n/yemen-houthi-red-sea-conditional-pause)).

## Relationships

The strait is legally twinned with the [Suez Canal](/en/n/suez-canal-dossier): the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty guaranteed Israeli access to both, and Saudi Arabia's commitment covers both transit routes. Jordan's port of Aqaba, the country's sole seaport, is wholly dependent on the strait for access to global trade. Israel's port of Eilat handles a smaller share of total Israeli trade but is the country's only Red Sea maritime outlet and its primary route for goods moving to and from Asia without transiting the canal.

The Tiran-Sanafir sovereignty question is now a sub-issue within the broader Saudi-Israeli normalization track. US officials have linked final island handover to a formal, US-guaranteed navigation commitment from Riyadh. The [chokepoints backgrounder](/en/n/shipping-chokepoints-chokepoints-backgrounder) places Tiran in a network of straits where a closure cascades into freight-rate spikes across multiple ocean basins.

## What to watch

Whether the physical handover of Tiran and Sanafir to Saudi Arabia is completed, and what surveillance mechanism replaces the MFO. Any renewed Saudi-Israeli normalization talks will require resolving the navigation guarantee framework first. The Houthi campaign's long-term effect on traffic through Eilat matters: if carriers reroute away from the Gulf of Aqaba, the strait's commercial salience diminishes, reducing incentives for fast resolution. Jordan's position is the most stable variable: Aqaba has no alternative sea outlet.

## Regional takes (batched by bias / lens)

### official record
- **NASA Earth Observatory** (international, en) — NASA astronaut photography and scientific annotation documenting the strait's two navigable channels, depths of 290m and 73m, and the shallow coral reef zones around Tiran Island.
  Source: https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/strait-of-tiran-red-sea-and-gulf-of-aqaba-81772/

### analysis
- **The Washington Institute for Near East Policy** (Middle East, en) — July 2022 policy analysis of the US-brokered Israeli-Saudi-Egyptian framework, detailing Israel's navigation and demilitarization requirements and the MFO transition question.
  Source: https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/getting-israeli-saudi-deal-tiran-and-sanafir
- **Arab Center Washington DC** (Middle East, en) — Examination of why the Tiran-Sanafir handover stalled after 2017 ratification, covering Egyptian nationalist opposition, surveillance camera disputes, and Cairo's demands for Saudi financial assistance.
  Source: https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/geopolitics-of-small-islands-the-stalemate-of-tiran-and-sanafirs-transfer-impacts-egypt-saudi-relations/
- **BESA Center for Strategic Studies** (Middle East, en) — Strategic assessment of Saudi Arabia's commitment to uphold Israel's 1979 peace treaty navigation rights upon assuming sovereignty over Tiran and Sanafir, and what it signals for normalization.
  Source: https://besacenter.org/meaning-israel-restored-saudi-sovereignty-tiran-sanafir-islands/

## Across the graph
- Related: [[yemen-houthi-red-sea-conditional-pause]], [[suez-canal-dossier]], [[shipping-chokepoints-chokepoints-backgrounder]], [[red-sea-cables-dossier]]
- Entities: Place:strait of Tiran, Country:egypt, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Gulf of Aqaba, Tiran Island

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Canonical: https://rbtfl.xyz/en/n/strait-of-tiran-dossier