Dozens of Al Jazeera journalists were hacked with spyware sold by the Israeli Occupation this year, according to cybersecurity watchdog Citizen's Lab. 

A report published Sunday showed that three dozen employees were targeted in the attack, which the watchdog attributed to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. 

According to one of the targeted employees, journalist Tamer Almisshal, a probe was launched after the media group received death threats to a phone that was used to call Emirati ministries. 

“Based on this, we handed the phone to Citizen Lab, who found that the phone was hacked by spyware called Pegasus, which is developed by NSO, an Israeli company,” said Almisshal.

“This hacking was done by a so-called zero-click technique where they can access cameras and track the device. They also found that operators in the UAE and Saudi Arabia were behind this hacking. We tracked the spyware for six months and found that at least 36 Al Jazeera staffers were hacked. They have used some of the content they stole from the phones to blackmail journalists, by posting private photos on the internet,” said Almisshal. 

The same spyware was used to track communication between slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi and his killer Omar Abdulaziz in 2018. 

After the 2017 rift between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt, the four latter countries stipulated that the division could be remedied with 13 demands, one of which was closing Al Jazeera Media Network, which Qatar did not accept.

Despite renewed talks between the five countries recently, no agreement has been reached. 

The Israeli Occupation, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia have not yet commented on the matter.