More than 44 million hacking attempts have been made on Israeli government websites since Israel began its air raids on the Gaza Strip almost a week ago.

The figures, released by the Israeli government, indicated that attempts on defence-related sites had been the highest, while 10 million attempts had been made on the site of Israel's president, seven million on the country's foreign ministry and three million on the site of the prime minister.

Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said just one hacking attempt was successful on a site he did not want to name, but it was up and running after 10 minutes of downtime.

Anonymous, an international group of cyberactivists, has posted online a list of nearly 700 Israeli websites it claims it has targeted, defaced and disrupted in response to the latest airstrikes on Gaza.