The Friday threats apparently came as a result of the Israeli government's on-off maritime blockade of the Gaza strip, Infosecurity notes.
Yesterday saw servers operated by the Israel Defense Forces and the Mossad intelligence services offline, along with the website of the Shabak (Shin Bet) - the Israel security services - also being down.
According to a Twitter posting by Ofir Gendelman, a spokesperson for the Israeli Prime Minister's office, the outage was due to a system malfunction: “Israeli government websites crashed today because of a server malfunction, not as a result of a cyber attack”, said the tweet.
THN, the hacker news, meanwhile, said the attacks appear to be the direct result of an Anonymous attack, noting that a YouTube video from the group warned that, if the siege on Gaza is maintained, it will have no choice but to go on the attack.
"Your actions are illegal, against democracy, human rights, international, and maritime laws", said the Anonymous' press advisory, adding that "justifying war, murder, illegal interception, and pirate-like activities under an illegal cover of defense will not go unnoticed by us or the people of the world."
"If you continue blocking humanitarian vessels to Gaza or repeat the dreadful actions of May 31st, 2010 against any Gaza Freedom Flotillas then you will leave us no choice but to strike back. Again and again, until you stop", noted the newswire, citing Anonymous.
THN added that, if the siege continues and Israeli forces intercept additional flotillas - “or if they conduct additional operations such as the commandeering of the Mavi Marmara” - Anonymous will have no alternative but to launch repeated cyber-attacks on Israeli computer systems.