An Iranian Islamic scholar said in a recent sermon that Iran's cyber force carried out at least two attacks against Israel this year, the recent one successfully targeting power plants in the Jewish state.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter
He seems to have confirmed what Israel has already claimed – that in January, Iranian hackers mounted a coordinated cyberattack on dozens of Israeli websites, and that Iran was behind a failed cyberattack on a minor water facility in Israel in early April, which sought to poison the water supply delivered to several central Israeli cities.
In a video translated to English by the Middle East Media Research Institute and released Wednesday, scholar Rahim Mahdavipour claimed that "Islamic Iran, as the primary and central headquarters of the resistance front, has unique assets and unique winning cards, thank God.
"The cyber force of this central headquarters of the resistance front – that is, Islamic Iran – carried out two extraordinary attacks this year," he continued.
"The first, at the beginning of the year, was against the desalination plants inside Israel, in that occupied land. Similarly, a few days ago, it carried out a cyber attack against some Israeli electricity plants, and disabled most of them," Mahdavipour claimed.
"This is a unique capability," he added.
The sermon was delivered on Nov. 6 in Bojnurd, Iran, and was aired on Iranian Khorasan Shomali TV, according to MEMRI.
On Oct. 30, the Israel Electric Corporation confirmed that there was a power outage in many areas across the country, however, stressed it was not caused by a cyberattack.
Vice President of Services at the Electric Company Oren Helman said that "I understand why people thought this was a cyberattack, but that is a conspiracy theory that pops up every time something happens in the Electric Company."
Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!
April's incident created a precedent for tit-for-tat cyberattacks on civilian infrastructure that both countries have so far avoided.
This article was first published by i24NEWS.
