Hacker collective Anonymous has announced that it has taken down over a thousand of crucial Israeli websites in a huge new coordinated cyber-attack called #OpSaveGaza on 11 July and 17 July, in support of the people of Palestine.
Some of the websites, such as the Tel Aviv Police Department's online presence, are still offline two days after the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, and numerous Israeli government homepages have been replaced by graphics, slogans, and auto-playing audio files made by AnonGhost, the team of hackers who coordinated the attack.
The official Israeli government jobs website has had its homepage replaced by a graphic titled "Akincilar", which is Turkish for the Ottoman Empire's troops.A message written in English and Turkish - presumably by Turkish hackers - and accompanied by pictures of Palestinians suffering says: "The Jerusalem cause is Muslims' fight of honour" and says that people who fight for Palestine are "on the side of Allah".
Another Israeli government website now bears an AnonGhost graphic and lists the usernames of 38 hackers.
An audio file that auto-plays when the page loads plays music and a synthesized newsreader clip, together with a message beseeching human rights organisations, hackers and activists to attack Israeli websites to become the "cyber shield, the voice for the forgotten people".