A dramatic military intervention by the Israeli army on Monday, in a confrontation with a pro-Palestinian flotilla near the Gaza Strip, exposed a little-known formation - Shayetet 13.
Shayetet 13 is a naval commando unit of the Israeli Navy. Shayetet simply means "flotilla" and "13" (shaloh essre) - her number … You can find in the media the use of the term Sayeret 13. This is a mistake, Sayeret means "patrol", used only in the army, but not in the navy.
Shayetet is located in Atlit, a small coastal town in the south of Haifa. Its premises are located opposite the Crusader fortress, built in the 13th century and owned by the Templars.
The history of the Israeli naval special forces begins even before the creation of the State of Israel, in 1948. Previously, there was a special group known as Palayim, which was directly involved in the secret immigration of Jews.
This formation gave birth to the 13th flotilla in 1949, under the command of Yohai Bin-Nun. Born in Haifa in 1921, this officer ended his career as an admiral in the Israeli Navy. After his retirement in 1967, he created the Institute of Oceanography and Limnology.
Bin-Nun distinguished himself during Operation Yoav, in October 1948, when his men destroyed the flagship of the Egyptian fleet, the Emir Farouk, in front of the Gaza Strip. They used the Italian technique of torpedo boats filled with explosives, which were sent to the ship and the sailors from them jumped into the water! A tactic developed by the Italian Decima Mas … and which the Israelis have worked on in Lake Tiberias.
The story of Shayetet is the success story (not always available to the public) of bloody chess, as everyone has just seen.
In June 1967, during the Six Day War, six of them were captured during a covert operation. Another failure in 1969, with three killed and a dozen wounded during the raid on the Green Island in the Suez Canal. While the mission was completed, the Egyptian facility was destroyed, the losses were considered very high. At that time, the leadership of the flotilla was seriously renewed.
In 1973, they take part in a raid on Beirut, during which Palestinian leaders were killed. Among the participants in this operation was the current Minister of Defense Ehud Barak, who then headed another special unit - Sayeret Matkal.
Lebanon and its shores then became the main field of their actions. Dozens of operations have been performed since 1982. Shayetet learns the other side in September 1997, when 16 people are trapped in a Hezbollah car bomb: 11 dead. In 2006, during the second war with Lebanon, a new raid into Tire was victorious this time. The Hezbollah group is destroyed - the same one that fired rockets at the city of Hadera the day before.
During both Intifads, Shayetet is busy, like other special forces, in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip on dangerous arrest missions.
Shayetet's merit should also be the capture in 2002 in the Indian Ocean of the cargo ship Karine A, which transported weapons for the Palestinians, as well as the capture of the container ship MV Francop in 2009.
Like the entire Israeli army, Shayetet recruits draft-age recruits who serve five years instead of three. The selection takes place at the time of the call, at the age of 18. After skimming the cream - future aviation pilots - the volunteers undergo a special selection, which allows them to become a candidate for one of three divisions: the marines, special forces (Matkal and Shaldag) and the 13th flotilla. The candidates for Shayetet are selected to be the most powerful in the Israeli army. The preparation takes twenty months. Service in Commando Yami (commando of the Israeli Navy) is not a sinecure …
Shayetet, whose numbers are classified, is organized into three squads: commandos, operations at sea (combat swimmers) and speed ships.
