by The Commentator on 2 April 2013 10:15

Hackers around the world will this week attempt to disrupt Israel’s online presence in a coordinated cyber-attack designed to "erase" Israel.

The effort is known as “#OpIsrael,” and is being organized by 'hacktivist' group Anonymous. The 100 largest websites in Israel, especially those of banks, credit card companies, and communications firms, are set to be targeted.

The group, which defines itself as a "collective", released a video yesterday stating that it intends to, "...strike any and all websites that we deem to be in Israeli Cyberspace in retaliation for the mistreating of people in Gaza and other areas."

One hacker remarked, “Its gonna be the biggest ever operation launched against any country, Its gonna be Huge!”

The first OpIsrael cyber-attacks were launched by the Anonymous group during Israel’s November operation Pillar of Defense against terrorists in the Gaza Strip. Anonymous-affiliated hackers attacked over 700 Israeli websites, with Israel deflecting 44 million cyber-attacks on government websites.

Anonymous estimates that since then, around 10,000 sites have come under attack with a view to, "hack, deface, docks, hijack, database leak, admin takeover, four oh four and DNS terminate the Israeli Cyberspace by any means necessary".

Some critics doubt the ability of Anonymous to wreack havoc on Israeli cyber-infrastructure. On November 19th, 2012, the tech news blog Gizmodo published a post titled “Anonymous is Losing its War Against Israel,” comparing the attacks to “egging someone’s house.”

The article dismissed the group’s targetting of any website with an Israeli domain, which ended up taking down mostly small businesses. The leaking of “Israeli supporter” personal information, it said, is largely ineffective.

Just last week, the largest cyber attack ever is reported to have slowed down global internet traffic, while in the UK two leading counter-extremism websites were targeted.