Israel jammed navigation systems to “neutralize threats,” especially while preparing for missile attacks from Iran or its agents in the region.
This confusion has existed since the outbreak of war in certain areas, but it has recently expanded to include Tel Aviv and most parts of Israel.
On Thursday, Israel entered a state of maximum alert, in preparation for a
possible retaliatory attack after the killing of leaders in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in Damascus earlier this week.
The disruption comes a few days after the assassination of an Iranian general attributed to Israel, for which Tehran vowed to avenge it. However, these disturbances appear to be an extension of the ongoing disruption of the Global Positioning System (GPS) in the north amid the escalation of the conflict in that region.
For months, residents of northern Israel have been suffering from the deliberate disruption of the Global Positioning System (GPS) carried out by the Israeli military as part of the fighting in the area.
But this morning it appears that these jamming efforts have now extended to the central part of the country.
Beersheba in Cairo and Neve Zeev in Alexandria
Many Israelis have complained over the past period that search results for locations they enter via GPS in their cars or when they send their locations via WhatsApp appear to appear in Egypt or Lebanon.
Drivers in Beersheba, as well as users of GPS-based applications, were surprised Thursday when they were in one of the “Cairo neighborhoods.”
One person said that he intended to go to Neve Zeev in the Negev, but he found the regime directing him to the city of Alexandria in Egypt, according to Israeli media.
The media said that this came in light of fears of an Iranian reaction against Israel over the liquidation of senior officials and the threats that Tehran recently issued.
The Hebrew media explained that due to this extreme fear, severe disturbances occurred in the GPS navigation systems in Israel.
Israeli media revealed that for the first time a malfunction of this kind had occurred in GPS systems in Beersheba and other settlements in the Negev.
It is not clear how dangerous this interference is for the countries surrounding Israel, in which these places appear to be targeted by militias affiliated with Iran, such as the Houthi militia, which fired dozens of missiles at Israel during the past months.
GPS technology and Google Maps
Google Maps and similar services that cars use to determine locations rely on the GPS navigation system to provide step-by-step voice guidance on how to get to a specific destination.
The application requires an Internet data connection and typically uses a GPS satellite connection to determine its location.
The user can enter a destination into the app, which will plot a route to it. The app displays the user's progress along the route and issues instructions for each turn. But with navigation systems scrambled, all the data that would come out of the map service would be largely misleading.
Military use
According to estimates by the Rand Corporation, a security and defense research corporation, military forces can exploit GPS signals in several ways.
They can use location data to direct ground forces, as the United States does.
They can use the data to help locate warships or navigate aircraft.
However, the most threatening use of intercepted GPS signals would likely be to increase the accuracy of air-launched munitions or ballistic and cruise missiles.
For example, the notoriously inaccurate Scud missile is one weapon system that could be made more lethal through the introduction of Global Positioning System (GPS) technology.
According to RAND calculations, adding basic GPS guidance to a Scud derivative or version of North Korea's No Dong 1 missile could improve the missile's overall accuracy by twenty to twenty-five percent.
RAND sees GPS as a factor that facilitates missile guidance.
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