Hackers projected images of dead Palestinians onto cinema screens in Israel and described members of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) as “terrorist killers.” The hackers targeted the Lev cinema chain in Tel Aviv and placed statements including “Stupid Jews” onto screens. The messages are believed to have originated from Turkey as they included a caption “MeshSec Turkish Hacktivist Crew.”
The on-screen comments said that Jews will have no peace, “even in movie theaters,” until they take responsibility for the death of Gazans and “until your massacres are over.”
A cinema spokesperson said the screens displaying the comments were switched off immediately, and police were investigating. Lev CEO Guy Shan played down the incident and said it has “grown out of proportion.”
Pro-Palestinian hackers have targeted Israel since the Hamas terror attack last October in what some commentators have described as a “digital battlefront.” In the two weeks that followed the attack on October 7, there were more than 400 incidents of hacking Israeli sites, and these have come from various places, including Russia and Iran.
Experts say hacking initially targeted news or media sites, but this quickly accelerated and affected military, medical, and government servers. Spokeswoman Libi Oz of the Israeli National Cyber Directorate said Israel’s government is being extra vigilant and labeled the hackers “cyber terrorists.”
The “cyber terrorists” have boasted openly on social media about their ability to affect digital attacks on the Jewish state and claimed to have targeted Israel’s famed Iron Dome Defense system, as well as its electric grid. Liz Wu, a spokesperson for Israeli-based cybersecurity group Check Point Software, said she has tracked more than 40 groups responsible, with many located in Iran.
Gil Messing, chief of staff at Check Point, emphasized that much of the boasting is based on falsity, and anti-Israel groups often publish old data breaches and pretend they are contemporary. The hacking began on October 7, the day of the Hamas attack.
