Lists The Karine A affair, also known as Operation "Noah's Ark" (Hebrew: מבצע תיבת נוח, romanized: Mivtza Teyvat Noah), was an Israeli military action in January 2002 in which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) forces seized MV Karine A, which, according to the IDF, was a Palestinian freighter in the Red Sea.

[1] The vessel was found to be carrying 50 tons of weapons, including short-range Katyusha rockets, antitank missiles, and high explosives.

[1][2][3] Prior investigation had revealed that the captain of the vessel was Colonel Omar Akawi, a Fatah activist since 1976 and former member of the Palestinian Authority.

[1] The alleged purchaser of the weapons, Mughrabi (aka Adel Salameh), was a former member of Yassir Arafat's staff until the early 1980s "when he was dismissed for conducting private business which conflicted with his official status".

The shipment included the following weapons:[1][2] Ashkelon and other coastal cities would have been threatened by these Katyusha rockets if they had reached Gaza.

[1] Major General Yedidya Ya'ari, the commander of the Israeli Navy, reported that the weapons and equipment were packed in 83 crates, in waterproof plastic and attached to buoys, to permit their drop-off and retrieval at sea.

[1] Israeli Navy commandos, backed by combat helicopters and aircraft, surprised the crew and took over the vessel without firing a shot.

[10] Major General Shaul Mofaz, chief of staff of the IDF, announced in a Tel Aviv news conference on January 4 that the IDF had seized the ship while General Anthony Zinni was meeting with Yasser Arafat to promote negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Three Hezbollah members arrested in Jordan were attempting to smuggle Katyusha rockets to the Palestinians (the detainees were later freed by the Jordanians at the request of the Lebanese government).

[11] Israeli reports stated that the ship, purchased from Lebanon, had loaded weapons at the Iranian island of Kish in the middle of the night off the coast of Iran.

[5] Some academics, such as Matthew Levitt,[13] Anthony Cordesman[14] and Efraim Karsh[15] have also supported the view that the ship was smuggling Iranian weapons to the Palestinian Authority.

[8] Israel subsequently arrested Fuad Shubaki, an Arafat aide who was in charge of finances in the PA and, as such, the mastermind behind the operation.

[16] In 2006, Shubaki was taken into custody after an IDF raid on the Jericho prison where he was being held together with Ahmed Sa'adat—the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

[23][24] A book entitled A Raid on the Red Sea: The Israeli Capture of the Karine A by Amos Gilboa, edited and translated by Yonah Jeremy Bob was published in 2021.