Islamists hack Venice Jewish community library website

Unknown individuals calling themselves the “Tunisian Fallaga Team” hacked into the website of the Venice Jewish community’s library and archive and posted pro-Islamist and pro-Palestinian messages on its home page.

Gadi Luzzatto Voghera, the director of the Renato Maestro Library and Archive, called the incident Monday “in effect, a violent and targeted threat, of a type that was clearly anti-Semitic.”

He said the library’s home page had been replaced for “several hours” by a dark screen with English-language slogans and videos inciting Islamist attacks in Tunisia and promoting the “fight for the liberation of Palestine.”

Police are investigating the incident.

“It is an act that we condemn with all our force,” Paolo Gnignati, the president of the Venice Jewish community, told local media. “It invites us never to lower our guard,” he said.

Local media reported that the Tunisian Fallaga Team had carried out other hacks, into non-Jewish Italian websites, in recent months. It was not clear if the attack on the Venice Jewish library was related to the major events to mark the 500th anniversary of the institution of the Venice ghetto, which are scheduled to kick off on March 29 and last throughout the year.