Anonymous targets Israel with protests, hacks

While Israel might have the support of Western governments with regards to its Palestinian conflict, it doesn't garner quite the same feelings from the online world. Apparently over the weekend, the Israeli government was hit by over 44 million hacking attempts, some of which came from the faceless hacktivist movement, Anonymous.

Announcing its successful takeovers of Israeli websites, the collective began posting URLs in a list, which quickly totalled in the hundreds. While some are back to their original forms now, many of the sites were defaced with Anonymous imagery, or supportive messages for Hamas and Palestine.

Despite the reclamation of many of the sites hacked late last week, OpIsrael is still ongoing, with tweets pouring in every few minutes with the announcement of a new hack. Apparently the Bank of Jerusalem has had one of its databased deleted and several thousand Israeli Office mobile phone and email accounts have been hacked.

Anonpaste had an explanation of Anonymous' actions, stating (via The Telegraph): “The reasons for Anonymous intervention through #OpIsrael should be abundantly clear: What is happening in Palestine is oppression. They have no navy, no army, or air force. There is no war in Gaza. There is only the continuous application of military force by Israel in an attempt to push every last person out of the Palestinian state, despite international laws that make these efforts illegal.”

Israel has declared itself at war on two fronts, one with Palestine and the other with hackers. However it's not worried apparently, having invested a lot in online security over the past few years.

Despite these upgrades to Israel defence however, it didn't stop the President's website going down a few minutes ago. For another big list of currently defaced and taken down sites, there's a growing list here.

KitGuru Says: The Israel Palestine conflict is one charged with emotion and religion. Clearly Anonymous has declared its allegiance. Where do you guys stand? [yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q760tsz1Z7M&feature=share']

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