Facebook group fakes Hamas phishing attack

A popular Israeli Facebook group, “Everyday Normal Guys,” fakes a Hamas phishing attack after Gaza militant groups take over other local Facebook pages — “Status Hunter” and the Israeli Domino’s Pizza page.

The satirical group, which has over 50,000 followers, changes its cover photo to a picture of a Palestinian father holding both a rifle and his two small children, bedecked in Hamas green. Its profile picture is changed to the logo of the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, a coalition of Palestinian terrorist organizations.

Next come the statuses, in both Arabic and intentionally incorrect Hebrew. They are meant to emulate the menacing — and badly translated — statuses posted by Palestinian hackers on other Israeli groups, as well as the propaganda videos released by Hamas. In some cases, the group’s administrators, students Omry Hazut and Alon Hamoudot, used the same phrases as did Hamas in their videos — and even misspelled them in the very same way.

But a closer look reveals that the Arabic accompanying the threatening messages has little to do with the Hebrew “translations” — in fact, they are Arabic translations of popular Western pop songs.

In one instance, Hazut and Hamoudot — both of them students in Middle Eastern Studies — post two lines from the Backstreet Boys’ hit song “I Want It That Way” in Arabic, followed by a Hebrew “translation” reading “Tell me why you Gaaza fire / Zionist is trash you we will destroyy.”

A few hours later, they reveal that the attack was faked.