Lebanon:

Israel hacked Lebanese phones during Nasrallah speech

Rasa - Lebanon has held the Israeli regime responsible for a recent hacking into the country's telecom network during a speech by Secretary General of Hezbollah resistance movement Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

News ID: 429648

Date: 14 May 2017 - 23:17

RNA - During the Thursday speech to honor Hezbollah’s top military commander Mustafa Badreddine, calls and messages were sent to thousands of Lebanese people accusing Nasrallah of ordering Badreddine’s murder.

Following the incident, Hezbollah said, “An unknown source manipulated the landlines of Hezbollah’s press office, calling a number of citizens and sending text messages,” which “included insults against the resistance and its leader.”

In a joint statement, Lebanon’s Telecommunications Ministry and the state-run telecoms company Ogero said they believe that Israel is behind the suspicious phone calls, citing a similar Israeli hacking back in 2006.

The breach affected around 10,000 phones through a “high technology that penetrated the telephone network from outside Lebanon,” the statement added.

It further went on to say that a technical inspection had found that the calls were initiated from France, Italy, Iraq, Syria and several other countries.

Probes would continue and the Lebanese government would take necessary measures and technical procedures to prevent such breaches, the statement concluded.

During the 33-day Israeli war on Lebanon in 2006, Tel Aviv and its allies sent text and voice messages to Lebanese mobile phones and hacked into Hezbollah’s television station Al-Manar.

On Thursday, the Hezbollah leader warned that no part of the Israeli occupied Palestinian lands would be immune to resistance missiles and its fighters in any future conflict.

He further noted that Lebanese resistance fighters had fulfilled the task of securing the border area with Syria and dismantled militant outposts in the region.

One day later, Hezbollah announced that it had handed over a number of military posts to the Lebanese army.

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