Defense minister’s Twitter hacked, shares Palestinian flag, Turkish anthem
Bennett’s ostensible post calling for ‘freedom for Palestine’ quickly deleted, password to account changed; cyber investigators said probing if his cellphone also compromised
Defense Minister Naftali Bennett’s Twitter account was hacked early Saturday, posting an image of a Palestinian flag and the lyrics to Turkey’s national anthem.
The tweets were swiftly deleted after being sent out at around 2 a.m.
“The hack lasted a number of minutes. The content was immediately erased and the account password was replaced,” Bennett’s office said in a statement. “The matter was brought to the authorized cyber elements in the security forces to be dealt with.”
According to Channel 13 news, Israeli intelligence and cyber investigators were probing whether the hack also compromised Bennett’s cellphone.
The defense establishment was working to determine if there was any security damage linked to the hacked, the report said.
The first tweet in the series posted on Bennett’s account said “freedom for palestine…” with the Palestinian flag, and was followed by the entirety of Turkey’s anthem in English, with images of the Turkish flag.
The last post credited the anthem’s author, Turkish poet Mehmet Akif Ersoy.
The incident was not the first time that apparent Turkish hackers cracked an Israeli official’s Twitter account.
In January 2018, a Turkish hacking group took over the Twitter account of Dore Gold, who has served in the past in various official capacities, including as an adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as ambassador to the United Nations and as the director-general of the Foreign Ministry.
In a tweet on Gold’s account, a group calling itself the “Turkish cyber army Ayyıldız Tim” claimed credit for the attack.
“Jerusalem can not be the capital of Israel! Because Jerusalem is holy to Muslims and is the land of Palestine,” the group wrote.