Israeli websites have come under massive cyber attacks in solidarity with Palestinians following a warning by the hacker group Anonymous that threatened to ‘erase’ Israel from the internet.
Websites including the sites owned by the Bank of Israel, Tax Authority, and the Central Bureau of Statistics came under cyber attacks on Saturday night.
Anonymous has vowed to “erase” Israel from the internet by disabling Israeli websites during an operation called ‘Op-Israel.’
You have NOT stopped your endless human right violations. You have NOT stopped illegal settlements. You have NOT respected the ceasefire. You have shown that you do NOT respect international law,” Anonymous said in a statement referring to the Israeli regime.
“This is why on April 7, elite cyber-squadrons from around the world have decided to unite in solidarity with the Palestinian people against Israel as one entity to disrupt and erase Israel from cyberspace,” the Anonymous statement added, listing 1,300 Israeli websites as targets.
The Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Sunday that the hackers also attacked almost 19,000 Israeli Facebook accounts.
The first ‘Op-Israel’ was launched by Anonymous during the eight-day Israeli war on the Gaza Strip in November 2012.
Some 700 Israeli websites came under repeated cyber attacks.
The Israeli ministry for financial affairs reported an estimated 44 million unique attacks on the regime’s websites during the cyber operation in November.
In late March, the internet hacking group said on its twitter page that it gained access to the personal data of more than 30,000 Israeli officials, including military officials, politicians and Mossad agents.
According to Haaretz, Anonymous posted the online personal data of 5,000 Israeli officials, including names, ID numbers and personal emails after the first ‘Op-Israel.’