Hizbullah hits Israel's INS Hanit with anti-ship missile
ALON BEN-DAVID JDW Correspondent
on the Israeli-Lebanese border
Israel's INS Hanit, a Eilat (Sa'ar 5)-class missile corvette, was struck on 14 July by an Iranian-made C-802 Noor (Tondar) radar-guided anti-ship missile, fired by Hizbullah from Beirut
Four crew members were killed by the missile, which hit the rear section of the ship, causing substantial damage to the vessel's helicopter pad and steering systems.
INS Hanit, Israel's most advanced fighting ship, is equipped with a multi-layered missile-defence system, which appears not to have been fully activated at the time of the attack.
A second Noor, also fired at Hanit, missed and instead hit a Cambodian merchant ship 60 km off shore. The ship sank but its 12 crew members were rescued.
"We were not aware that Hizbullah possessed this kind of missile," said Rear Admiral Noam Faig, Israel Navy (IN) head of operations, told Jane's.
"We are familiar with that missile from other areas but assumed that the threat was not present in Lebanon."
The Noor, based on the Chinese C-802, was reported to have a 200 km range during manoeuvres conducted by the Iranian Navy in April 2005.
Hizbullah fired the missile at Hanit from a 16 km range, hitting it without activating any of the ship's protection systems.
The impact caused a fire in the rear section of the ship, causing the helicopter pad to crash into the lower level. The ship's automatic fire-protection system, meanwhile, locked the rear section where the four servicemen were trapped.
"The Hanit lost its steering and we had to tow it with another ship, until the crew partially fixed the steering," said Rear Adm Faig.
Only after docking in Ashdod naval base were the bodies of the four servicemen recovered.
An initial debrief of the incident suggested that the Hanit was sailing without fully activating its Barak-point defence system.
"It's true that the Sa'ar 5 could easily handle radar-guided missiles but we were just not expecting this kind of short-range threat," an IN source told Jane's.
For other, undisclosed reasons, the Hanit's electronic countermeasures and electronic support measures, as well as the Vulcan Phalanx close-in weapon system failed to block or intercept the missile.
"It's a very painful blow to the IN," admitted an IN source, "but it could have been worse if they had hit another section of the ship."
According to Major General Gadi Eisenkott, Israel Defence Force (IDF) Chief of Operations, Hizbullah operatives were co-operating with the Lebanese Navy's radar station in Beirut.
un misil acercandose o un gomón con dos tipos. 
