Hackers threaten ‘historic’ attack on Israel

Occupied Jerusalem: Hackers are threatening to disrupt internet operations in Israel in a major cyber attack planned for Sunday, code named OpIsrael.

The hackers’ group Anonymous and similar collectives have in recent days been exchanging information, via social media and other websites, on Israeli the government and corporate websites they plan to target in preparation for the threatened attack.

On Thursday, Anonymous warned that it was poised to launch “the largest internet battle in the history of mankind”.

“We can’t be consumed by our petty differences any more. We will be united in our common interest,” the group warned in a Facebook posting. “We will once again be fighting for freedom. Freedom from tyranny, oppression, persecution, and from annihilation.”

In a YouTube video, Anonymous said that Israel had “crossed a line in the sand” by threatening to sever all internet and telecommunications links out of the Gaza Strip.

The film features an image of one of the group’s trademark Guy Fawkes masks, and a voice saying: “For too long Anonymous has stood by with the rest of the world and watched in despair as the barbaric despicable and brutal treatment of the Palestinian people in the so-called Palestinian territories by the Israeli defence force — as some call it the largest open-air prison in the world.”

Israeli radio on Friday reported that a number of large organisations had closed their websites to prevent hackers from sabotaging them. The radio’s noon news magazine programme reported that on Sunday organisations involved in the attack would make public information they collect from websites that “will cause Israel embarrassment”.

The newspaper Haaretz said this week that many Israelis had reported being targeted by a virus spread via Facebook, the social networking website.

In Israel, April 7 is marked as Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The Israel Defence Forces, which recently formed a cyber warfare command, declined to comment on the threatened attack, saying it was “not a military matter”. An Israeli military spokeswoman referred the Financial Times to the ministry of finance, which declined to comment.

Israeli government offices and banks have come under frequent attack from hackers critical of Israel and sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. Last November, a number of Israeli websites were targeted by hackers during Operation Pillar of Defence”, the occupation army’s eight-day-long air campaign in the Gaza Strip.