Representative image of cyberattack.
Credit: X/@Jerusalem_Post
The Jerusalem Post, one of the foremost news publications of Israel, has reported on social media platform 'X' that their website has crashed after being targetted by "multiple cyberattacks".
"The Jerusalem Post has been targeted by multiple cyberattacks this morning causing our site to crash," the publication's social media post read.
"We'll be back soon and will continue to be the top source of information on Operation Swords of Iron and the murderous attacks by Hamas," it further said.
As Israel reeled from a deadly attack by Hamas militants who broke through barriers around Gaza and roamed at will, killing scores of civilians in Israeli towns, defence chiefs faced growing questions over how the disaster could have happened.
A day after the 50th anniversary of the start of the 1973 Yom Kippur war, when Israeli forces were caught off guard by Syrian and Egyptian tank columns, the military appeared once again to have been surprised by a sudden attack.
"It looks quite similar to what happened at that time," said retired General Giora Eiland, a former head of Israel's National Security Council. "As we can see it, Israel was completely surprised, by a very well coordinated attack," he told a briefing with reporters.
An army spokesman said there would be discussions on the intelligence preparation "down the road" but for the moment the focus was on fighting. "We'll talk about that when we need to talk about it," he told a briefing with reporters.
For the past 18 months, Gaza had been relatively quiet, apart from sporadic cross border clashes mainly involving the smaller Islamic Jihad movement, with Hamas remaining largely on the sidelines.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing government has always made great play of its security credentials and taken an uncompromising stance towards the Palestinian militant factions including Hamas, which has controlled Gaza since 2007.
(With Reuters inputs)