Israel accuses Iran and Hezbollah of sending threatening texts to millions of Israelis

Israel is accusing Iran and Hezbollah of bombarding millions of Israelis with threatening text messages as the conflict between the Israeli military and the Lebanese militant group escalated.

Israel's National Cyber Directorate said Thursday that a flood of Hebrew-language text messages popped up on cellphones nationwide, falsely purporting to be a communication from the Israeli Home Front Command.

The government said roughly 5 million suspicious SMS texts were sent to Israelis late Wednesday. It determined that Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah hacked an Israeli mobile service provider and exploited its customer accounts. The Israeli government did not say which provider. It was not immediately clear whether additional customer information was compromised.

“Say goodbye to your loved ones,” read one of the messages seen by The Associated Press. “Don’t worry, you will hug them in hell.”

Israel’s Cyber Directorate described the deluge of texts as an “unsophisticated attempt to incite public panic.” It said Israelis received three versions of the messages, all containing “harmful” links to unknown websites that it said were “rendered inactive within a short period of time.”

There was no immediate response to the Israeli allegations from Hezbollah or Iran.