Hackers vowing to "wipe Israel off the map of the Internet" officially launched a new round of cyber attacks on Israeli sites on Saturday afternoon, just as a new day dawned in Australia. Hackers around the world have been organizing to target Israel in a mass cyber attack on Sunday, April 7.

So far dozens of sites have been vandalized and hundreds of e-mail addresses and passwords have been released by the campaign, dubbed "Operation Israel."

Sites serving government agencies, including the Israel Securities Authority, the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption and the Central Bureau of Statistics were said to have been brought down, according to a list posted on hackersnewsbulletin.com, although the sites appeared to be back in service shortly after being attacked.

Some 19,000 Israeli Facebook accounts were said to been hacked as well, although a list to that effect has yet to be released.

The virtual campaign was launched by hackers affiliated with the Anonymous group in order to protest Israeli policies in Gaza and the West Bank. The organizers threatened to wage "the largest Internet battle in the history of mankind" that would eventually "wipe Israel off the map of the Internet."

"You have not stopped your endless human right violations," the group said in a post addressed to Israel's government. "You have not stopped illegal settlements. You have not respected the ceasefire. You have shown that you do not respect international law.

"This is why that on April 7, elite cyber-squadrons from around the world have decided to unite in solidarity with the Palestinian people against Israel as one entity to disrupt and erase Israel from cyberspace."

April 7 is the eve of Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The campaign was originally launched in order to protest Pillar of Defense, the offensive launched by Israel on the Gaza Strip in November 2012.

Meanwhile, Israeli hackers launched a counterattack; one of the targets was OpIsrael.com, Operation Israel's website, which was furnished with pro-Israel content.

Roni Bachar, a cyber-security expert at the Avnet Information Security said that so far, the operation amounted to nothing more than a power struggle between Anonymous and Israeli hackers.

"It appears that many organizations have made great efforts to block attacks or at least minimize the damage," he said, noting that while much hacker activity has been detected, it wasn't enough to cause the serious damage that was pledged.