Last Updated on 03/01/2022 by Sanskriti
Early Monday, two prominent Israeli news sites were hacked with a menacing message that looked to be tied to the murder of a top Iranian general two years ago.
A graphic of a fist shooting a shell out of a ring with a red stone on a finger toward an exploding dome was taken over the website of the English-language Jerusalem Post and the Twitter account of the Hebrew-language Maariv.
Below the fist, a caption in English and Hebrew reads, “We are close to you where you do not think about it.”
The attack occurred exactly two years after a US drone strike in Baghdad on January 3, 2020, which killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, the leader of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force, which handles international operations.
At the time, the US claimed that Soleimani, who was frequently seen wearing a ring with a red stone, was plotting an attack against US forces in Iraq.
The breach, according to The Jerusalem Post, lasted a few hours. By Monday lunchtime, Maariv’s Twitter account had erased the international message and had not posted anything new.
It was unclear who had hacked the Israeli news sites at the time.
Israel is concerned that Iran’s nuclear program may be used to acquire weapons to attack the Jewish state, and the two countries frequently hint at future military attacks.
