OpIsrael Error 404 Israel Not Found via @Ahmed22Gh on Twitter

Israelis will have another traditional plague to contend with this Passover: the annual return of OpIsrael from the more militant and frequently Muslim branches of Anonymous.

OpIsrael Anonymous team via Ahmed22Gh on Twitter

Every year since 2012 has seen the return of OpIsrael in greater or lesser strength, largely dependent on whether Israel has been in the latest news for firing rockets at people or not. While Anonymous has a strong presence in Gaza and other parts of the Middle East, not every cluster and IRC of this faceless collective is in perfect agreement with the stated goals of the Op, which have varied from defending Gaza’s access to the Internet to downing everything on the .il top level domain to hacking and leaking key government and institutional websites.

In 2013, Anonymous claimed the attack (which included a leak of Mossad passwords and emails) cost Israel $3 billion and global embarrassment.

That year, the attack featured participation from a cyberdefense team’s worst nightmare, a virtual scrum of hacker crews:

• Mauritania Attacker (AnonGhost)
• HUrr!c4nE (ajax Team)
• Hitcher (MLA – Muslim Liberation Army)
• SAW-19, X-Line, V!rus No!r (Moroccan Hackers)
• Foxy, MR@T0RJAN (Gaza Hacker Team)
• PLiiiJl (Anonymous Syria)
• ExDeaTH, Jihad (X-BLACKERZ INC)
• DzPhoenix (Devil Zone Team)
• Ouali Bouziad (Algerian Hacker)
• Saber Dz (Algerian Hacker)
• Dr.spam (Moroccan Hacker)
• X-Line (Moroccan Hackers)
• V!rus No!r (Moroccan Hackers)
• AnonGhost
• Mauritania HaCker Team
• Ajax Team
• MLA
• Moroccan Hackerz
• Gaza Hacker Team & Gaza Security Team
• Anonymous Syria
• ZHC
• The Hacker Army
• X-BLACKERZ INC
• Devil Zone Team
• Moroccan Hackers
• Algerian Hackers

It also featured participation from many un-aligned Anons including Jon Cowden, “The Forgotten Anon.” Israel, predictably, did not take it lying down, and itself TANGODOWN’ed several Anonymous websites.

This year’s participant crews, allied with Anonymous but standing apart from it in the way LulzSec did in the past (and we all know how well that worked out), are Fallaga Team, a hacker crew claiming to hail from Tunisia; leading pro-Palestinian hacker crew AnonGhost; Anonymous Arabe, which appears to have coined the term “IsraHell”; Kalachnicov Team; and Moroccan Agent Secret, who may or may not be Moroccan, but isn’t secretive about it in the least.

This round features the traditional “shot across the bow” YouTube and Press Release.

Uploaded by an AnonGhost-affiliated account, the video has been seen over 42,000 times UPDATE: That was yesterday. Today the count is 147,000. Looks like someone caught somebody’s attention.

The accompanying transcript/press release directs readers to two URLs: the Facebook page for an organization called Anon.Official.Org, which lists pro-Palestinian hacks and claims to have originated the video (and itself first posted in January of 2015), and the as-yet basically blank site http://anonymous-arab.com, which boasts a pro-Palestine header, the “April 7” warning as a banner, and not much else at all.

Greetings World, We Are Anonymous, This is a message to the foolish Zionist entities, 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,
We also see complete silence from other Arab, and foreign countries, Although this is nothing new to us, we refuse to stand by idly. Our response to these heinous crimes against humanity, will be on 7 April 2015. As we did many times, we’ll take down your servers, government websites, Israeli military websites, banks, and public institutions. We’ll erase you from cyber space as we have every year, 7 April 2015, will be an electronic holocaust,
a message to the youth of Palestine, YOU are a symbol of freedom, resistance, and hope, Never give up, never give in, NEVER! We are with you, and will continue to defend you, Our message to the foolish Benjamin Netanyahu, and all leaders in the Zionist entities, As promised in previous attacks, we will continue to electronically attack until the people of Palestine are free, As shown in previous attacks, we will continue to invade and attack your devices, websites and personal data, To the government of Israel, You have NOT stopped your endless human right violations. You have NOT stopped illegal settlements. You killed thousand people as in the last war against Gaza in 2014 . You have shown that you do NOT respect international law. This is why that on April 7 2015, elite cyber-squadrons, from around the world, will decide to unite in solidarity, with the Palestinian people, against Israel, as one entity to disrupt and erase Israel from cyberspace. To the government of Israel, we always say expect us but you always fail we are unexpected we’ll show you on 7 april 2015 whats the electronic holocaust mean…

We Are Anonymous,
Expect, the unexpected,

Given that many North African and Middle Eastern hacktivists have never ceased attacking Israel’s sites and data infrastructure, it’s hard to imagine exactly what they’ve got left in their bag for April 7, but time, as always, will tell.

And if time won’t, a snitch generally will.

Categories: Activism, AnonGhost, Anonymous, Cyber, Hackers, Hacktivism, News, OpIsrael, Politics