Elizabeth Weise

USATODAY

SAN FRANCISCO -- The hacking group Anonymous said it planned to launch a concerted attack against Israel on Friday, but as night fell little had happened.

As of 9:00 pm in Israel there had been no major cyber attacks, said Uri Rivner, head of cyber strategy at BioCatch, an authentication and threat detection computer security company with staff in Boston and Israel.

"So far, Israel is still on the net, and I'm using Skype to do this call with you, so it looks fine," Rivner said from near Tel Aviv.

Anonymous uploaded a video to YouTube July 18, saying it would launch the attack and asking "elite hackers" around the world to support it.

"We are calling upon the anonymous collective, and the elite hacker groups to join our crusade, and to wage cyber war against the state of Israel once more," the group said in its statement.

Similar attacks on July 11 and 17 took down a large number of both government and business websites in Israel, according to the International Business Times.

Hackers also targeted Israeli websites in April in response to Israel's treatment of Palestinians, but to less effect.



Five Palestinians were shot and killed during protests in the West Bank against the Israeli military's operation Friday as Israel beefed up security and braced for more demonstrations.

The violence comes after Palestinians in the West Bank called for a "Day of Rage," following the shelling Thursday of a U.N. school, where at least 15 were killed and dozens wounded.