Israeli social media, including the account of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, have been recently circulating a registered website, hamas.ps, claiming that this website belongs to Hamas, publishing pictures and videos of the Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, which Hamas launched on October 7.
The website published photos of killed and wounded people believed to be from the Israeli settlements on October 7.
The Website Affiliated With Hamas Is Registered With an Israeli Software Company
While conducting research, Misbar found indicators that show the website is not affiliated with Hamas. It was also clear that the website was established in December 1999, and was inactive until mid-November 2023. Records show that the website is hosted on server Wix, an Israeli software company established in October 2006 by Avishai Ebrahimi, Nadav Ebrahimi, and Giora Kaplan.
The source coding data also show that the Israeli software company Wix hosts the website.
Fake Icons
Misbar also noticed that the social media accounts of the claimed website do not work, when clicking on them, the user is redirected to the homepage of the mentioned applications, in order to share the website, which reinforces that it is a fake website.
Recently Updated Data
On November 21, 2023, the website underwent some modifications in the name of the owner, hosting country, and the related email, with the legal concealment of the name and country of owner, according to Whoxy.
By searching the Domain Tool database, Misbar found 274 historical records on Hamas.com, the oldest record from 21 years ago. Also, there were at least 106 substantial changes, indicating that 48% of the records show the owner’s information, while the rest use privacy or agency features.
Moreover, there were 65 IP changes on 65 IP addresses over the period of 18 years, 3 changes on hosting date, and 32 changes on 12 servers over 20 years.
The Website Attributed to Hamas Is a Phishing Site
By checking the link on Virus Total, it turned out to be suspicious, where 5 cybersecurity providers considered the website to be malicious.
When opening the website, the antivirus automatically disconnects and shows a warning message that the website is infected with Blacklist malware which could damage devices or networks.
The Blacklist is a security procedure taken by search engines and antivirus applications to delete the URL of a website and prevent display on the browser, especially when it discovers harmful activities or possible threats including phishing websites, Trojan horse software, and spyware websites.
Israeli Propaganda
Creating and promoting this website comes in the context of mainstream and Israeli propaganda, where Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper mentioned that Israeli propaganda activists bought the domain of Hamas.com, and published harsh and uncensored content of the events of October 7, pointing out that the Israeli Foreign Affairs and Israeli embassies around the world have shed the light on this website.
Haaretz also said that Israeli activists stole the Hamas website and turned it into a show platform to present images of the events of October 7, according to the newspaper. It also pointed out that the website is clearly not connected to the Hamas movement, despite the fact that the actual website of Hamas, Hamas.ps, stopped connecting to the internet.
In this regard, Hamas warned through a post on Telegram against dealing with websites that impersonate the movement and collects funds as part of distortion, fraud, and espionage, while announcing that their official website is hamas.ps and they have no other websites.
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