Anonymous hacktivists launch attacks on Israeli websites

PanARMENIAN.Net - Hacker group Anonymous is claiming to have successfully knocked offline and in some cases erased a number of prominent Israeli websites, The Verge reports.

The comprehensive attack, dubbed operation "OpIsrael," comes in direct retaliation to threats from Israel's government that it may shutter internet access to and from Gaza as violence between its Israel Defence Force (IDF) and Hamas continues to escalate.

"For far too long, Anonymous has stood by with the rest of the world and watched in despair the barbaric, brutal and despicable treatment of the Palestinian people in the so called 'Occupied Territories' by the Israel Defense Force," reads a statement from the group. "But when the government of Israel publicly threatened to sever all Internet and other telecommunications into and out of Gaza they crossed a line in the sand."

Anonymous also claims to have deleted databases belonging to both Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Bank of Jerusalem.