Monday, January 03, 2022
“We are close to you”
Hackers attack “Jerusalem Post”
On the anniversary of the assassination of the Iranian General Soleimani, hackers carried out a cyber attack on the Jerusalem Post. A picture of a nuclear reactor appears where the news actually is, along with a threat. Now the question arises of the attacker’s whereabouts and client.
Pro-Iranian hackers temporarily paralyzed the website of the Israeli newspaper “Jerusalem Post” and the Twitter account of the Israeli daily newspaper “Maariv”. Instead of the news content, a model image of the Israeli nuclear reactor in the desert city of Dimona was shown, which is detonated with a rocket. The rocket is fired with a hand clenched in a fist from a ring worn by the Iranian General Ghassem Soleimani, who was killed in a US drone attack in Iraq exactly two years ago. Next to it is written in English and Hebrew: “We are close to you where you do not think about it.”
The newspaper’s website and “Maariv” account are now back to normal. It is unclear whether the hackers were in Iran or from another country, wrote the “Jerusalem Post”. It is also not clear whether they are traveling on behalf of the state.
The Jerusalem Post had been the target of pro-Iranian hackers in the past. In May 2020, a picture of the burning city of Tel Aviv appeared on the website. It showed how the then Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reached for a lifebuoy in the sea – with the caption “Be ready for a surprise”.
Tehran sees Israel as an archenemy. The destruction of the Jewish state and the “liberation of Palestine” have been part of the country’s foreign policy doctrine for four decades. Soleimani was killed with a US drone attack on January 3, 2020 during a visit to Baghdad on the orders of then US President Donald Trump. Tehran said the attack endangered peace in the region and called for the UN to condemn it.