A group calling itself the Z Company Hacking Crew (@Z_H_C_) have hacked and thoroughly pwned the online persona of Israeli Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom. The group announced via Twitter that they had defaced Shalom’s Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube accounts late Wednesday afternoon. Subsequent posts stated they’d also hacked the prominent Israeli politician’s blog, and had gained access to his email and contact list.

The Z Company Hacking Crew’s actions were done in solidarity with #OpIsrael, an online campaign which was launched last week by hactivist collective Anonymous (see story) in response to the Israeli government’s threat to cut off the internet in Gaza. However, when Russia Today (@RT_com) reported news of the Shalom hack, the @Z_H_C_ Twitter account requested that the Russian state-funded news network clarify that it was done by the Z Company Hacking Crew autonomously from Anonymous. In a follow up post the group explained: “ZHC are not Anonymous. We work with Anon on some projects but we are a completely separate team.”