Hackers target Israeli TV channels, air call to prayer

By Anees Barghouti

JERUSALEM (AA) - Two Israeli television channels were reportedly hacked on Tuesday by anonymous hackers who broadcast the Muslim call to prayer and images of wildfires that tore across Israel last week.

In separate statements, Israel’s Channel 2 and Channel 10 television networks said their respective transmissions had been interrupted for several minutes by images of Jerusalem’s iconic Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The Muslim call to prayer was also broadcast, along with images of wildfires that broke out last week in several parts of the Jewish state, the two channels added.

According to both networks, hackers also broadcast a message in Hebrew linking a controversial bill in the Knesset -- which would ban the use of loudspeakers to amplify calls to prayer -- to last week’s fires.

"It is Allah’s punishment; the fire burned their hearts; Allah is most high," the message read.

In a statement carried by the Jerusalem Post, Channel 2 said that preliminary investigations had found that the hackers "took control of the [network’s] satellite broadcasting in mostly Arab communities".