This past Saturday Hamas targeted leading Israelis, Christian reporters active in Israel, and secular western journalists with a massive series of text messages threatening kidnapping and reprisals for actions by the Israeli government and their military.
According to the Jerusalem Post, messages were reportedly sent on order of Hamas's military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades to coincide with the 10-year anniversary of the death of Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, assassinated by Israel in 2004.
Arutz Sheva, whose own journalists received pictures of Yassin, reported that some of the text messages are the result of a cyber-attack on the Israel Defense website, which exposed the cell phone numbers and email addresses of hundreds of registered users who received the messages. They added that the text messages are appearing from private or blocked numbers from Palestinian Arab area codes, as well as from reportedly false numbers from Israeli companies.
Messages included the following: - “Al-Qassam has chosen you to be The next Shalite [sic]...Be Ready,” (Shalite – a captured Israeli soldier); “if Gaza is attacked, then the life of the Zionists will be hell”, also “Kassam promised revenge and there was revenge. The account is not over; the worst is yet to come, “ And finally “Israel established the injustice and the occupation and the fate of every entity of injustice and occupation is destruction...the Shaheed [martyr] Ahmed Yassin.”
In addition to parliamentary aides and secular western journalists, recipients included Christian Broadcasting Network reporters. The Foreign Press Association responded, according to Charisma News, that the recipients had apparently come from a "carefully selected data base set up by the military wing of Hamas."
The text messages followed an Israel counter-terrorism raid in the West Bank city of Jenin over the weekend, in which a wanted Hamas member, 20-year-old Hamza Abu Alheja, along with two other Palestinians were killed. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the Alheja had organized terrorist attacks in the past and was currently planning attacks on innocent civilians.
In response, the Palestinian Authority (PA), Islamic Jihad, and Hamas issued statements showing a rare solidarity in exacting revenge upon Israel. Senior Islamic Jihad official Nafez Azzam said "The United States and Israel want to force the Palestinians and the entire region to surrender, but Gaza and the West Bank resist this". A demonstration was called for in the northern Gaza town Beit Lahiya later on Saturday to condemn the Jenin killings and "support resistance." Meanwhile a spokesman for PA, Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, condemned the "continuing escalation against the Palestinian people", for which he blamed Israel.
Other recipients of the cyber attack included Eyal Shviki, aide to opposition leader Isaac Herzog (Labor), and Washington Post correspondent and former Jerusalem Post reporter Ruth Eglash, who both posted images of the messages on Facebook, and found that many of their colleagues had similar experiences. Eglash said: “I was confused when I first received them and thought they were directed only at me. At first I tried to call the number, but just got a weird buzzing sound.”
The New York Times Jerusalem bureau Chief Jodi Rudoren was another recipient and tried calling back. “When I thought it was only coming to me, I planned to call Orange and perhaps the police today [Sunday] to trace the numbers, but [New York Times correspondent] Isabel [Kershner] got one shortly after... and Emily Harris of NPR, and then it was all over Facebook and the news, so I see no reason to report it”.
The Foreign Press Association (FPA) condemned the messages, writing: “This is unacceptable. Journalists are not part of the Middle East conflict. They are observers who should be treated as such. The FPA calls on the Hamas government to take steps to guarantee this never happens again.”
Unfortunately the FPA doesn’t quite grasp that Hamas doesn’t see things the same way. They see foreign reporters who try to by even handed even if not impartial as just another part of the enemy they are fighting. Journalists will remain either targets or tools of the terrorists unless they unremittingly adopt the Hamas position.
The sophistication and intensity of the attack reveals a high level of commitment and co-ordination from Israel’s enemies on a whole new front. It also reveals that they posses tech. skills on a fairly high level which makes future hacking, along with worse cyber crimes, a realistic probability.
The high tech knowledge required to hack into a very secure Israeli database suggests that there may well be outside forces lending a hand. The West should not be so naïve as to ignore the possibility of Russian involvement as they have repeatedly and recently shown a willingness to involve themselves in the affairs of the region.
Another e-mail (above) vowed that the assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in 2004 by the IAF will not be forgotten and will be avenged by "cutting your commanders' heads."
"You murdered our sheikh with your rockets, now our rockets will come to you," the e-mail said (original text in broken Hebrew, corrected by Ynetnews).
Another e-mail (above) vowed that the assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in 2004 by the IAF will not be forgotten and will be avenged by "cutting your commanders' heads."
"You murdered our sheikh with your rockets, now our rockets will come to you," the e-mail said (original text in broken Hebrew, corrected by Ynetnews).
