The freighter's captain thought he'd outsmarted the Israelis—until commandos materialized from the darkness of the Red Sea.

The Night Israeli Frogmen Blew Up the Karine A

How a Red Sea Interception Exposed Iran's Secret Arms Pipeline to Palestine

Israeli commandos seized a ship carrying 50 tons of Iranian weapons bound for Palestine, reshaping American Middle East policy.

The freighter *Karine A* pitched gently in the swells of the Red Sea, 500 kilometers south of Eilat, her captain convinced they had slipped through. It was January 3, 2002, but the operation's roots stretched back to November 4, 2001—the day Israeli intelligence first confirmed the ship's deadly cargo.

That November morning, a Mossad analyst in Tel Aviv pieced together fragments from multiple sources: intercepts from Iranian Revolutionary Guard communications, a tip from a Palestinian informant in Gaza, satellite imagery of suspicious loading activity at Kish Island. The *Karine A*, a 4,000-ton freighter flying a Tongan flag of convenience, had been purchased by the Palestinian Authority itself. Her hold contained fifty tons of Iranian weapons—Katyusha rockets, mortars, anti-tank missiles, over two million rounds of ammunition—all waterproofed and packed into eighty-three floating containers designed for offshore drops into Gaza's waters.

The ship's captain was Omar Akawi, a Palestinian naval officer personally recruited by PA security chief Fuzi Ayub. He believed the operation was foolproof: a legitimate-looking cargo vessel making a routine voyage through international waters.…

💡 The weapons were packed in 83 color-coded floating containers designed for offshore drops—an Iranian engineering innovation that allowed fishing boats to retrieve missiles from the sea.