The Taba Crisis of 1906 started when Sultan Abdul Hamid II of the Ottoman Empire decided to build a post at Taba. The British sent an Egyptian Coast Guard steamer to re-occupy Naqb el Aqaba and Taba. When encountered by a Turkish officer who refused them permission to land, the Egyptian force landed on the nearby Pharaoh's Island instead. The British Navy sent warships into the eastern Mediterranean and threatened to seize certain islands under the Ottoman Empire. The Sultan agreed to evacuate Taba and on 13 May 1906. Both Britain and Ottoman Empire agreed to demarcate a formal border that would run approximately straight from Rafah in a south-easterly direction to a point on the Gulf of Aqaba not less than from Aqaba.