Palestinians mark Balfour anniversary with Twitter hack, phone threat

Activists commemorate 1917 declaration by posting threatening messages and pictures on Haaretz feed, warning of ‘massacre’

Pro-Palestinian hackers on Tuesday marked the 98th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration by taking over the Twitter feed of the Hebrew-language Haaretz news website and sending threatening text messages to journalists.

A series of messages posted for over an hour on the Haaretz Twitter feed, written in misspelled Hebrew and Arabic and accompanied by graphic images, threatened more knife attacks and a “massacre.”

Among the tweets posted on Tuesday afternoon by the unknown hackers: “The Holocaust of the Balfour Declaration will continue the knife intifada”; “The mothers of our martyrs will drink the blood of your soldiers and settlers,” and “The memory of the Balfour Declaration has changed the situation, wait for the massacre that will be arriving soon.”

The posts included photos of Israeli leaders covered in blood and Israelis wounded in Palestinian attacks.

Haaretz's Twitter feed after it was hacked on November 3, 2015. (Screen Capture: Twitter) — Haaretz’s Twitter feed after it was hacked on November 3, 2015. (Screen Capture: Twitter)

The messages came a day after the 98th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, which established official British support for a Jewish state in Palestine, and has been credited with helping pave the way for the creation of the State of Israel.

Signed by British Foreign Secretary Lord Arthur James Balfour in 1917, the declaration gave the Zionist movement official recognition and backing on the part of a major power, on the eve of the British conquest of the then-Ottoman Palestine.

Haaretz, whose editorial position supports Palestinian aspirations for a state, thanked Twitter in a tweet for helping to resolve the situation.

Aside from the tweets, a message expressing similar sentiments and threats in broken Hebrew was sent out to cell phones around Israel. “A continuous Holocaust upon you until you give back the right to its owners,” read part of the message.

Threatening text sent out to Israeli cellphones on November 3, 2011. (Screen Capture)

Other Palestinians had different ways of marking the declaration’s anniversary. On Monday, Palestinian demonstrators in Gaza burned British, American and Israeli flags to commemorate the date.

Members of the al-Nasser Salah al-Deen Brigades terrorist group brandished guns, swords and axes at a demonstration in Rafah, the London-based Daily Mail reported. The demonstrators then burned the flags of the three countries.