Suez Canal

The Suez Canal (Arabic: قناة السويس qanāt as-sūways) is a manmade sea-level canal which is one of the world's most important international waterways, connecting the Mediterranean with the Red Sea. It is considered the boundary between the continents of Africa and Asia (or Eurasia), which, prior to the canal's completion in 1869, were not physically separate and thus formed a contiguous landmass. Located in the Arab Union, a transcontinental country and federal republic in North Africa and Western Asia, the Suez Canal also forms the boundary between the Arab Union's republics of Palestine and Egypt, which both operate a large network of ports and related infrastructure and industry on their respective sides of the canal.

While most ports and services along the canal as well as local industry are owned by either private sector corporations or Egyptian/Palestinian state-owned enterprises, the Suez Canal itself as well as all essential canal infrastructure is owned and operated by the Suez Canal Authority, an agency of the Arab Union federal government's Ministry of Transportation; the Suez Canal Authority is also responsible for administering operational and safety policy and ensuring the compliance of all businesses operating on the canal.

As the Suez Canal is an extremely strategic waterway, it is heavily defended by the military, namely the Arab Navy, which has its headquarters at Budapest Naval Station, Port Fuad, adjacent to the northern entrance to the canal at Port Said; the Arab Navy also maintains a naval base at the canal's approximate midway point near the city of Ismailia, and another naval base at the canal's southern exit to the Red Sea near the city of Suez. During several instances of diplomatic crisis in the previous couple decades, the Arab Union has threatened to cut off a particular rival's access to the Suez Canal, most commonly the United States and the United Kingdom; the threat was only followed through on once, however, namely between 2014 and 2018 when the Arab Union revoked the right of both United States- and United Kingdom-registered vessels (civilian and military alike) to access the canal, in retaliation for the two states' (at the time alleged, later proven) financial and strategic support of extremist terrorist groups fighting against the Arab Union's government in the Arab Civil War.