Route 90 Shut to Eilat as Flood Fears Close Four Desert Roads

Israeli police announced that from 12:00 on 25 March 2026 four roads across the south of the country would be closed to traffic in both directions because of the risk of flooding. The list covered Route 90 from Neve Zohar Junction, by the southern end of the Dead Sea, through Arava Junction and on to Eilat; Route 12 from Eilat to Neot Smadar Junction; Route 25 from Tzafit Junction to Arava Junction; and Route 40 from Ketura Junction to Tzichor Junction.

The public was asked to avoid non-essential travel to the southern region, to check conditions before setting out and to obey police instructions. The statement did not say how long the closures would last. It came while Israel was in the fourth week of the war with Iran that began on 28 February 2026, a period in which the Home Front Command had already been restricting movement and gatherings, as the Institute for the Study of War documented.

Why a desert floods faster than a wet country

The Negev and the Arava (the trough running from the Dead Sea south to Eilat) receive very little rain, and that is exactly the problem. Sun-baked ground absorbs almost nothing, so a storm falling on high ground can send a wall of water down a dry streambed many kilometres away, under a clear sky. The desert landscape is especially susceptible to severe weather and flash floods, The Times of Israel noted in December 2025, when flooding forced the closure of Routes 90, 12 and 40 and left Eilat effectively cut off, with hundreds of cars backed up as weekend visitors tried to get home.

The road with no alternative

Route 90 is the spine of eastern Israel, running the length of the country from the far north down the Jordan Valley, past the Dead Sea and through the Arava to Eilat. Where it crosses the desert there is essentially nothing to divert onto, which is why a single closed section between Neve Zohar and Arava Junction detaches the southern resort city from the rest of the country. Route 12, hugging the Egyptian border out of Eilat, and Route 40, the inland north–south road through the Negev, are the other two ways in and out; on 25 March all three were shut at once.

Why the police close roads before anything happens

Pre-emptive closures in this region carry the memory of a specific disaster. On 26 April 2018, ten teenagers (nine girls and a boy from a pre-military academy) were killed when a flash flood swept through the Tzafit riverbed south of the Dead Sea during a hike, despite weather warnings. In April 2025 the Beersheba District Court sentenced two educators to seven years in prison for negligent manslaughter over the deaths, The Times of Israel reported. Tzafit Junction, named for the same streambed, appears on the closure list.

What the police did not say

The notice gave no expected duration and no reopening criteria, did not attribute the flood risk to a named forecast, and did not say whether any roads were already impassable at the time it was issued. It made no mention of stranded travellers or of arrangements for residents of the Arava settlements on the closed stretches.