Police were called to the scene and an investigation was launched into the incident.
The words “Nazi,” “Army of Terror” and “The Occupation Army” were found scribbled across a memorial honoring 69 soldiers who disappeared in the Dakar submarine incident in 1968.
Staff members who arrived at the museum were shocked to discover the graffiti, which was spray-painted on a submarine bridge that was found washed up on shore several years ago.
Such incidents have increased in recent months ahead of Israel's planned pullout from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank, set to start next week.
Memorials of Israeli founder Theordore Herzl and late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin were vandalized in a similar way earlier in the year.
Maor: Pure slander
Museum curator Nir Maor said the memorial lies at the entrance to the museum and is not enclosed by a gate, in order to allow the victims’ family members to visit the monument any time of the day.
“It’s terrible that people use this place as a means to slander the IDF,” Maor said. “It hurts me just as much when both sides of the political spectrum use the expression “Nazis” in order to insult the army.”
“It seems they don’t understand who the Nazis were, otherwise they would not dare do this or desecrate the memory of our friends from the Dakar,” he said.
Knesset member and member of the centrist party, Elizer Sandberg, condemned the incident, calling it "a sick act."