When the Israeli army captured the oasis and revived its biblical name in 1948, Eilat was nothing more than a few Turkish shacks. King David had built his southernmost defense outpost here about 3000 years earlier, but little remained. Most of what is left of ancient and medieval Eilat is located along the beaches of Aqaba, across the border in Jordan. Under King Solomon, Eilat became famous as a center for the gold trade, but the town’s fortune waned after it was captured by Salah ad-Din in 1167. Under Muslim control, Eilat dwindled to a minor military post. After 1948, the town slowly developed as a naval gateway to the Red Sea, occasionally suffering from Egyptian blockades of the Tiran Straits in southern Sinai. The last of these ignited the 1967 Six Day War, in which Israel captured the Sinai.

It was onlythen that Eilat started to develop as a resort. In the past two decades, dozens of luxury hotels, restaurants, and tourist shops have become familiar (and lucrative) fixtures along a beach that offers year-round swimming. With the return of the Sinai to Egypt in 1982, Eilat only grew in popularity; Israel’s southernmost town is today the country’s biggest resort, its major port for Japanese imports, and a logical starting point for excursions into the Sinai.