Israeli electricity company says widespread power cut 'not a cyberattack'

Israel's national electricity company has denied that a widespread power outage on Monday was caused by a cyberattack.

About 150,000 people in areas across the country lost power at around 11:00 pm local time on Monday, Israeli media reported.

Most homes were reconnected within minutes, Ynet reported, citing comments by Israeli Electric Corporation.

The government-owned power company said that the "malfunctions reported by consumers throughout the country are not the result of a cyber attack".

Corporation CEO Meir Spiegler said the power outages had been caused by "a collapse of two production units", at two different power stations.

A power outage in Israel in April was claimed by Anonymous Sudan, a hacker group that had in previous months attacked websites belonging to Israeli news outlets and the defence ministry.

At the time, the Israeli Electric Corporation said that the power outage was caused by a "glitch" at a Haifa power plant.

An outage in June left swathes of the country without power for hours amid sweltering summer temperatures.

Israeli authorities are on high alert for cyberattacks as their war on Gaza, which has so far killed almost 21,000 people, rages on.

The country's National Cyber Directorate has claimed that more than a dozen groups linked to Iran, Hezbollah, or Hamas have been conducting cyberattacks on Israel since 7 October, when Israeli forces began their brutal onslaught on Gaza.