27 Facts About Shayetet 13

Shayetet 13 specializes in sea-to-land incursions, counter-terrorism, sabotage, maritime intelligence gathering, maritime hostage rescue, and boarding.

Unlike many other Israeli Special Forces Units which take men only for their 36-month mandatory service, volunteers for Shayetet 13 must agree to service at least four and a half years.

In 1957, Shayetet 13 began to jointly train with the French Marine Commandos, and as a result, information about its existence began to leak.

On July 9,1958, Shayetet 13 operatives infiltrated Beirut harbor in Operation Yovel.

Shayetet 13 commandos infiltrated Port Said, but found no ships there, and during a raid into Alexandria, six divers were captured and taken prisoner, and released in January 1968.

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In July 1967, Shayetet 13 commandos crossed the Suez Canal and blew up an Egyptian rail line in two places.

On September 7,1969, Shayetet 13 carried out Operation Escort, raiding the Egyptian anchorage at Ras Sadat and destroying a pair of Egyptian P-183 torpedo-boats.

Shayetet 13 took part in Operation Spring of Youth in 1973, in which Israeli special forces raided Beirut and killed several members of Black September, the terrorist group which carried out the Munich massacre of Israeli athletes in the Munich 1972 Summer Olympics.

In one notable raid on April 19,1980 Shayetet 13 commandos raided the base of a guerrilla organization that according to intelligence was planning an attack on a community in Israel, killing about 15 guerrillas, including the commander of the would-be infiltration unit and two of its members, and two structures were destroyed.

Shayetet 13 was responsible for stopping ships that were ferrying weapons out of the country to Italy, including Yasser Arafat's personal boat.

Shayetet 13 participated in hundreds of operations against Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, killing dozens of militants and arresting hundreds.

Shayetet 13 snipers were responsible for the assassination of Thabet Thabet, a senior Fatah political official in Tulkarm.

The unit participated in the Battle of Jenin, during which a Shayetet 13 force extracted an Israeli reserve army unit which was pinned down after having been ambushed and recovered the bodies of soldiers who had been killed in the ambush.

In 2004, the unit's operations were temporarily suspended following a complaint from B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, that Shayetet 13 operatives had shot an unarmed Palestinian fighter in Jenin for no reason.

In 2002 and again in 2003, Shayetet 13 won the Chief-of-Staff citation for successful counter terrorism operations.

On May 31,2010, Shayetet 13 took part in Operation Sea Breeze or Operation Sky Winds against a flotilla trying to break the blockade of Gaza.

Subsequently, Shayetet 13 commandos boarded and seized the aid ship MV Rachel Corrie with no resistance.

On March 15,2011, Shayetet 13 took part in "Operation Iron Law, " conducted on the high seas against the Liberian-flagged, German-owned Victoria, a cargo vessel found to be carrying 50 tons of weapons which intelligence reports indicated had been consigned to Hamas.

On March 5,2014, Shayetet 13 commandos raided the ship Klos C, an Iranian ship heading for Port Sudan from Iraq with weapons believed to have been destined for militant groups.

In 2012, Shayetet 13 commandos seized a Liberian-flagged German cargo ship on suspicion that it was carrying weapons, but no weaponry was found.

That same year, numerous members of Shayetet 13 were awarded citations for covert operations in enemy territory after the unit had carried out a series of operations which resulted in "many successes" according to the IDF.

In 2013, it was reported that Shayetet 13 commandos had installed espionage equipment on an island close to the Syrian city of Tartus which enabled Israel to monitor the Russian naval presence there.

Many of Shayetet 13's missions are classified, though some known or suspected activities of the unit have been revealed by other means.

Shayetet 13 has an estimated 300 personnel divided into three specialized company-sized units, these include:.

Shayetet 13 operates a summer course for teenagers about to enter military service considering joining the unit, who have the opportunity to get a taste of training in diving, raids, navigation, boats, and more.

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Toward the end of their training, Shayetet 13 recruits go through a course in enduring enemy captivity which recruits from other special forces units and pilot cadets must go through.

In 2000, the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported that Shayetet 13 veterans had an unusually high occurrence of cancer and other serious illnesses compared to the general population.