So I perusing one of the lesser parts of the internet and I found this.
It seems to be a photos of the Israeli missile boat Gaash, which apparently ran aground in Saudi Arabia in 1981. Wikipedia, which has several zillion articles on meaningless stuff, has nothing on the Gaash. But look here. The ship was a Sa’ar 3-class missile boat. The entry for the Ga’ash says it did in fact run aground as claimed.
Is this true? How can there be nothing else but these clues on the entire internet about this?
Well, remember 1981 was pre-internet. So an Israeli boat ran aground. So they refloated it. Israeli soldiers conducted an operation within the territory of an Arab state, but not for the first time or the last time. There were no long-term consequences for Israel or Saudi Arabia.
Why expect exhaustive documentation on the internet in later years? It’s not that exciting.
On September 24 1981 the missile boat Ga’ash ran aground in Saudi Arabia. The IDF landed a large force (several hundred people, I think) to secure and rescue it, in an operation known as “Flying Dutchman”. 62 hours after it hit the shore, the ship was back afloat.
At the Americans’ request, the Saudis did not interfere with Israeli activities, and both nations pretended nothing happened.