For nearly four decades the idea of a fixed link across the Red Sea between Saudi Arabia and Egypt has drifted between ambition and abandonment.
In 2026, war and the fragility of the region's shipping lanes may finally push it from drawing board to construction site.
The project officially the King Salman Causeway, but popularly known as the "Moses Bridge" after the biblical crossing would run roughly 32 kilometres across the northern Red Sea. It would link Ras Hamid in Saudi Arabia's Tabuk province to the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on the Sinai Peninsula, passing through Tiran Island at the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba. Estimated at $4 billion, the crossing is to be fully financed by Riyadh. While the full link spans about 32 km, the actual over-water portion at the strait is far shorter, on the order of 7 to 9 km, and planners have kept open whether it will ultimately be built as a bridge or a tunnel.
A long history, suddenly urgent First floated in the late 1980s and revived in 2011, the plan was formally agreed in principle in 2016 by Saudi King Salman and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. It gained momentum after Egypt transferred the Tiran and Sanafir islands to Saudi Arabia in 2017, removing a major diplomatic hurdle. By mid-2025, Egyptian Transport Minister Kamel al-Wazir said planning was complete and that the two countries were ready to begin, whether as a bridge or a tunnel.
What changed in 2026 is the strategic backdrop. The 2026 Iran war, with its simultaneous closure of Hormuz and renewed disruption of the Red Sea, has exposed the region's dependence on narrow waterways that adversaries can weaponise. With Suez Canal traffic falling sharply and Cairo citing cumulative canal-revenue losses exceeding $10 billion since the onset of regional instability, the causeway's rationale has shifted from convenient to essential.
Why it matters If built, the causeway would create the first direct overland link between Asia and Africa across the Red Sea. Designed for both road and rail, it would let Saudi Arabia's expanding rail network connect with Egypt's, forming a continuous two-continent corridor. The link is expected to cut travel times between the two countries to potentially just 30 minutes by car. Officials estimate it could serve more than a million travellers a year, including North African pilgrims bound for Mecca. It could also quadruple Saudi tourist arrivals to Egypt, from around 300,000 to over 1.2 million annually. On the Saudi side it would feed directly into the NEOM development zone. The bridge also carries geopolitical weight. It is one of several corridors — east to India, west to Africa, north through Iraq to Türkiye — that let Riyadh reach European markets while sidestepping routes dependent on Israel. Because the Strait of Tiran is the gateway to Israel's Red Sea port of Eilat and falls under Camp David-era international guarantees, the crossing is being watched closely in Jerusalem.
The hurdles Engineering and ecology remain the biggest question marks. The Strait of Tiran holds fragile coral reefs and endangered species such as dugongs, and Egyptian conservationists have given only conditional support, insisting on rigorous surveys and the avoidance of sensitive reef zones. The Gulf of Aqaba is also seismically active, and the strait is a live shipping lane, all factors that complicate pylon placement and favour, in some proposals, a submerged tunnel over a surface bridge. As of mid-2026 no formal groundbreaking date had been announced, with the project still awaiting final approvals. Should it proceed, it would rank among the longest sea-crossing bridges in the world.
← All briefs