Israeli web domain hacked to protest ongoing Gaza offensive

Saturday January 03, 2009 01:31 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies

Israeli sources reported on Friday that an Israeli domain server was hacked on Friday, and the main pages of major Israeli websites were replaced with images of the casualties of the ongoing Israeli offensive against the Gaza Strip.

the hacked wesbite - image by Ynet News

Some of the hacked websites were the Israeli Bank Discount, a website for weather forecast and the Israeli Ynet News, a right-wing Israeli news website.

The main page of Ynet News was replaced by a black page which included four pictures; the first picture included a large number of bodies of Palestinians or Lebanese who were killed in Israeli offensives, the second pictures was of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, all nude and forced to lie on top of each other. 

The third picture was an image of a Jewish Orthodox man carrying a poster which reads Ending Zionism = Peace, and the fourth picture was a series of maps, detailing the illegal land grab and annexation of Palestinian land by Israel through different historical periods, from historic Palestine to the present day.

The hackers also played a song about Gaza in the background. The website was fixed several hours later, and Ynet News managed to gain control over it again.

Furthermore, the hackers also controlled an Israeli Weather Forecast website.

It was revealed later that the hackers were from Turkey and that they hacked into the websites in retaliation to the ongoing Israeli attacks against the Gaza Strip.

They left messages in Turkish and English stating, “You will be cursed in the electronic world”, and other messages such as “to the Palestinian people, your Muslim brothers salute you… be patient…we in Turkey support you.”

Meanwhile, Israeli Ynet News, reported that an Islamic group in Morocco hacked into The Net domain registration system and hijacked several prominent domain names in Israel such as Ynetnews.com and Bank Discount.

Ynet News added that the hackers obtained a password which granted them access to the server, “which updates and 'translates' the websites' IP addresses into a Domain Name Service; and change the IP's numeral values, effectively rerouting users away from the original websites”.

Ynet added that the hackers did not hack into actual websites but redirected the users to a “hostile” website, while other hackers managed to access original websites.

Also, Ynet reported that a group in Morocco, calling itself “Team Evil”, was behind attacking the domain name. The same group previously hacked into other Israeli brands such as Cellcom, Shilav and BlueSquare, Ynet said, and added that the server which hosts the hackers’ website is based in Japan.

israel | miscellaneous | news report saed at imemc dot org