Image placed by hackers on the website of Jerusalem Post on January 3.
Iran-affiliated hackers targeted Israeli media outlests early Monday, on the second anniversary of Qasem Soleiman's killing by a US done attack in Baghdad.
The Jerusalem Post’s website and Maariv’s Twitter account were targeted.
Hackers put a photo of a model of Israel’s Dimona nuclear plant being blown up while a hand is shooting down a missile from an agate stone ring, something Soleimani was known to be wearing all the time.
A threatening sentence attributed to the IRGC Qods (Quds) force commander was also placed on the photo in English and Hebrew that said, “We are close to you where you do not think about it". It is from one of Soleimani’s speeches that addressed former US president Donald Trump about a year before his killing.
According to the Jerusalem Post, it cannot be verified if the source of the cyberattack was from Iran or from outside the country or if they were state sponsored.
In May 2020, hackers replaced the site's homepage with an illustration of Tel Aviv burning as then-Prime-Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was swimming for a life preserver with a text saying, "Be ready for a big surprise."
Iranian officials have often threatened retribution against American and Israeli officials that they have listed as having been involved in ordering, planning and carrying out the drone strike that killed Soleimani.