The latter operation helped shape the Israeli navy's doctrine of the use of small weapon systems as opposed to conventional fleets.

[2] During the second truce of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, between July 18 and October 15, 1948, the naval service's strength increased significantly, totaling 16 vessels of a combined 7,000 tons.

[5] The Egyptian fleet had three large and eight small minesweepers, four armed service ships, three corvettes, at least four patrol boats and at least 20 landing craft.

[6] The Israeli political and military leadership therefore planned a massive operation, the largest undertaken by the IDF to that point.

The operation was named The Ten Plagues (later renamed to Yoav), and involved the first major Israeli naval offensive campaign.

[8] The Israeli naval service operated under the assumption that a concentrated attack on the Egyptians would force them to use their entire military arsenal for defense, and they would therefore not have offensive capabilities.

Their mission was to patrol the Gaza–Majdal area and engage any Egyptian ships whose location they could find, either through intelligence reports or visual identification.

[13] A shelling of al-Arish was also planned for October 18, but the Israeli ships turned to Majdal to look for a reported Egyptian vessel, which they did not find.

[11] The vessel left Jaffa Port at 20:45 on October 16, followed by the patrol boat INS Sa'ar which carried the landing troops.

[12] On October 18 at 22:45, intelligence reported that the Egyptian forces in Iraq al-Manshiyya ran out of fuel and required supplies.

[16] At 10:00 on October 19, a specific air force report pointed to an Egyptian vessel unloading cargo in Gaza.

At 11:00, an Egyptian ship was spotted in Majdal,[a] and at 11:21, after coming closer, discovered that it was a corvette unloading cargo and troops.

[13] Wedgwood had come dangerously close to the shore and ran the risk of running aground, and also blocked Haganah's field of fire.

Both Haganah and Wedgwood exchanged fire with the Egyptian corvette but the Israeli cannons were of low quality and jammed frequently.

The ship shot down one of the planes, which exploded near the surface of the water, damaging Haganah and injuring five of its crew members, one of whom died of his wounds half an hour later.

At this point the corvette had gone out of range and Wedgwood began to retreat north, but Egyptian Spitfires attacked it, dropping three bombs, one of which wounded a crew member.

While Ze'ev HaYam procured two large motor boats and two landing craft, he wanted to acquire the Decima Flottiglia MAS's MT explosive motorboats that had been used in the Raid on Souda Bay to ram into and destroy larger ships.

[13] The assembly of the boats, the training, and indeed the essence of the sabotage unit were so secret that even Paul Shulman, deputy commander of the naval service, was not in on it.

Training on the first boats to arrive was done in the Sea of Galilee, with the Italian sailor Fiorenzo Capriotti teaching the Israelis how to use them.

Contrary to the modus operandi for the Italian sabotage units on World War II, the Israelis sought to prevent its soldiers from being taken prisoner.

[27][28][29] Bin Nun engineered a lasso-like belt that would be cast into the water by the rescue crew, the swimmer would put him arm into it, and be hauled onto the boat.

Gershon Zak, head of the naval service, and Paul Shulman, his deputy and head of the main flotilla, supported the operation, while chief of operations Yigael Yadin opposed, in light of an impending ceasefire and lack of prior experience with this method of warfare.

[25][31] At 18:40, INS Ma'oz detached from the rest of the flotilla and sailed to a spot 7 nautical miles (13 km; 8.1 mi) northwest of Gaza.

Additionally, the ship was ordered to stay put in its location, so that despite its camouflage, the returning Israeli sailors would be able to find it.

[35] Because the Egyptian ships were facing one another, Bin-Nun decided that Abramov and Vardi would attack the bows of Emir Farouk and the minesweeper, respectively.

In the dark, Abramov believed that Vardi's was the extraction boat and caught on, but detached from it as well before it rammed into the Egyptian ship.

The extraction boat collected the commandos and remained in the area to assess the damage, estimating about 200–300 Egyptian survivors.

The operation strengthened the notion that the Israeli navy could not be solely a conventional one, and had instead to incorporate naval commandos and other small weapon systems as an integral part of its doctrine.

[36][39] For his exploits, Yohai Bin-Nun received the Hero of Israel citation, and the commando crew was invited to lunch by David Ben-Gurion.