Eilat, also known as Elath in the Hebrew Bible and Umm al-Rashrash in Arabic, is a Red Sea port and resort city in southern Israel, located near the Jordanian port of Aqaba in the southern Negev desert. It had lucrative mining and maritime trading operations during the time of Ancient Egypt, and Moses and the Israelites camped in the area during the Exodus of 1491-1450 BC. King David later conquered both Edom and Elath, and it was a prosperous Judean trading port from the 9th to 7th centuries BC. The Romans built a road from Elath to Petra, and, during the Umayyad era, "Umm al-Rashrash" was home to up to 400 copper smelters and traders. The 1947 United Nations partition plan for Mandatory Palestine designated Eilat as part of the Jewish state of Israel, and construction of the city began after the Israeli victory in the 1948-49 Arab-Israeli War. In 1955, Jewish immigrant families from Morocco were resettled in Eilat, and it developed rapidly after the 1956 Suez Crisis and later became a busy port and seaside resort. In 2017, Eilat had a population of 50,724, with 96% of its residents being Jews and 4% Arabs.
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