A computer virus created by Islamist hackers has attacked the websites of a school and a church with anti-Israel messages.

Sowerby Primary School and The Danish Seamen's Church, both in Yorkshire, had their sites replaced with an image of defaced Israel and American flags, accompanied by text from a group calling itself X-saad.

The message read: “We Hackers We defend our religion, we do not forget we are without limits we do not believe in the laws.

“Islam is not a terrorist religion but Islam is the religion of coexistence and mercy and love, the real terrorists are Israel and america. zionists”.

Charles Allen, community governor at the school, wrote online: “The school and police believe it is perfectly safe to send your child/children to school”.

North Yorkshire Police said in a statement: “The Sowerby Primary School website had unauthorised content posted by a virus which seeks out servers with weak security software.”

Inspector Chris Galley added: "Other organisations and businesses both locally, nationally and internationally have had their websites compromised in a similar manner in recent months and there is no suggestion that Sowerby Primary School was deliberately targeted in any way.”

The message was removed by the school on Monday and the site continued to undergo maintenance work on Tuesday afternoon. The church’s site was once again functioning normally.

In the last two weeks, X-saad’s bug has attacked 22 websites in the United States, Spain and the UK.