High-speed railway to Eilat

The railway will spur southward from the existing rail line at Beersheba, and continue through Dimona to the Arava, Ramon Airport and Eilat, at a speed of 350 kilometers per hour (220 mph).

The freight service will serve as an alternative to the Suez Canal, allowing countries in Asia to pass goods to Europe through Israel.

In 1955, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion again decided to build such a railway, and the French expressed interest in the project, just before the Suez Crisis.

In the 1990s and 2000s, various transportation ministers, including Yisrael Keisar, Meir Sheetrit, Avigdor Lieberman and Shaul Mofaz, promised that such a railway would be built.

[12] In the 2010s the Israeli government approved the construction of a new port and airport for Eilat, a railway, upgraded highways and a light rail system.

[12] In October 2011, Israeli Minister of Transport Yisrael Katz signed a cooperation agreement regarding the railway with his Chinese counterpart.

[21] In all, ten countries have taken interest in the project, with Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea and the United States being the other seven.

[24] The route to Eilat crosses hundreds of kilometers of rough desert terrain, with frequent elevation changes and the potential for flash floods.

The topographically challenging nature of the route (and consequently the large investment required) is one of the main reasons the railway hasn't been constructed to date, despite the frequently expressed desire of various Israeli governments for such a line to be built.

[25] The Arava section would run through the natural habitat of halocnemum strobilaceum, a desert plant thought to have been extinct, but rediscovered in 2012.

[29] The section from Dimona to Hatzeva and Paran through the Mount Tzin area was approved by the National Planning and Construction Committee on March 5, 2013.

[31] In addition to the local market, the railway will serve Asian countries that want to transport freight to Europe by serving as a land bridge from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea; in that respect it will compete with the Suez Canal, although the Israel Port Authority and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have stated that it is not meant to compete on a regular basis.