a railway between Israel and the United Arab Emirates?

The map shows it going through Jordan and Saudi Arabia

A long-envisioned railway link between Israel and the United Arab Emirates is moving toward practical realization, following a visit by an Israeli delegation led by Israeli Minister of Transport, Miri Regev, to Abu Dhabi. The project has advanced quietly since the 2020 normalization agreements (the Abraham Accords), when the UAE expanded its Etihad Rail network westward to the Saudi border at Al Ghuwaifat. That line, operational since 2023, runs from the port of Al Fujairah to the frontier, where the tracks currently end.

The missing element is Saudi Arabia. While the Emirati section is fully built, the Saudis have not yet begun construction to connect their network toward Jordan and Israel. Both Israel and the UAE already operate modern rail systems, so the core focus now is planning the cross-border links needed to complete the corridor.

This effort integrates with the wider Gulf Railway initiative, a major GCC project intended to connect Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, and Oman through a unified regional rail network. The original target for initial operation is 2030. Israel and Jordan are expected to integrate into this system where diplomatic ties allow, creating a potential land bridge from the Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea.