As Israel pounded Gaza with live ammunition for the second straight week, hackers waged their own war online, infiltrating Israeli sites and posting videos, photos, and slogans that condemned the aggression.Hackers rewrote the content of several well-known Israeli websites and posted items about the atrocities committed by the Israeli army in Gaza. The hackers were thought to be operating from Lebanon, Morocco, Iran, and Turkey, the London-based newspaper Asharq al-Awsat reported Sunday.
The hackers targeted websites of small companies as well as government bodies, including the Israeli Defense Forces and the Israel Discount Bank, according to Israeli radio.
One of the hackers, who calls himself T@ke Sn!per, said his group targeted government sites and managed to hack more than 30, including websites of political parties and banks.
More than 10,000 pages were hacked, with one hacker managing to infiltrate about 2,485 websites.
Hackers also targeted the websites of several Israeli newspapers like Maariv and Yediot Aharonot where they posted pictures of dead Palestinians and of Iraqis tortured in American prisons.
The Israeli army has been posting videos of its airstrikes on Gaza and of Hamas rocket attacks inside Israel on You Tube. The virtual war could also be seen in debates on internet forums.
In October, Hamas announced a competition with cash prizes to encourage techies to break hard-line Israeli political organizations' websites.