Two Egyptian Komar-class missile boats fired Soviet SS-N-2 Styx missiles at the Israeli destroyer INS Eilat while it patrolled international waters off Sinai, sinking it and killing 47 Israeli sailors. The attack, four months after the Six-Day War, marked the first combat sinking of a warship by guided missile and triggered a naval-technology revolution worldwide.
The Eilat, a former British W-class destroyer, was cruising roughly 14 nautical miles off Port Said — in international waters by Israel's reckoning — when Egyptian missile boats moored in Alexandria harbor launched two Styx anti-ship missiles beyond visual range. A third and fourth missile finished the ship off as it attempted to withdraw.
Naval planners around the world took immediate notice: a relatively cheap fast attack craft had destroyed a full-sized destroyer without either vessel coming within sight of the other. It was a wake-up call that reshaped naval doctrine, accelerating development of electronic countermeasures, chaff, and close-in weapons systems.
The sinking also had lasting political consequences in the Middle East, hardening Israeli resolve and reinforcing the sense of a continuing shadow war along the Suez front even after the ceasefire that ended the Six-Day War.