In a video message, the hacker group Anonymous has threatened Israel with an “electronic Holocaust” over the Passover holiday.
The massive cyber attack on 7 April would fall just over a week before Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day on 16 April.
The video shows a masked figure in a suit and tie delivering a prepared statement, warning that the group will eradicate Israel from cyberspace “for... crimes in the Palestinian territories”.
The video is narrated in an electronic voice, suggesting software has either been used either to conceal the identity of the person speaking, to translate it from another language into English, or possibly both. 'We are coming back to punish you again, for your crimes in the Palestinian territories, as we do every year on 7 April, All we see is continuous aggression, bombing, killing and kidnapping of the Palestinian people, as in the last war against Gaza in 2014,' the voice in the video says.
It continues: “We will erase you from cyberspace in our electronic Holocaust. As we did many times, we will take down your servers, government websites, Israeli military websites, and Israeli institutions."
"Our message to the foolish Benjamin Netanyahu and all leaders in the Zionist entities, we will continue to electronically attack until the people of Palestine are free.”
Delivered in English and with Arabic subtitles, the video shows Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu sitting with members of his Cabinet and military leaders, coupled with images from the Gaza conflict, including ones showing air strikes on the Gaza Strip during the Israeli military peration Protective Edge last summer and Gazans running with injured children.
Previous targets of the hacker group’s operations have been websites of the Israeli prime minister’s office, the IDF, the Bank of Israel and the Embassy of Israel to the United States.
Last year, during the Gaza conflict, the ‘hacktivist’ group pledged that the #OpSaveGaza campaign against Israel would “expose their terrorist activity to the world”, referring to Israel as ‘Israhell’.
Cyber attacks against Israel have increased dramatically since the Gaza conflict.
