From Tel Aviv to Beirut.. How does Israel confuse GPS systems?

Al-Hurra website reported that Israelis woke up in Tel Aviv to find that the map applications on their phones indicated that they were in Beirut, about 200 kilometers north, which led to the obstruction of the work of taxi drivers and the food delivery applications were temporarily out of service.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Israeli army deliberately jammed and manipulated GPS signals, while the country prepared for a possible response from Iran.

The Israeli military said GPS jamming, which can be used to confuse weapons targeting systems, “was part of an effort to protect the country.”

According to the newspaper, this is not the time that Israel has jammed GPS signals since the outbreak of its war with Hamas on October 7, noting that it has resorted to the operation mainly in the north of the country, where it exchanges strikes with Hezbollah.

It also disrupted the system in southern Israel, especially around the city of Eilat, which has been the target of missile and drone attacks by Iranian-backed Yemeni and Iraqi factions, according to Yigal Ona, former director general of Israel’s National Cyber ​​Directorate.

The GPS disruptions have intensified since Monday’s raid in Damascus and have spread to central Israel, including Tel Aviv, where a taxi driver said his mapping application pinpointed his location at Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport.

In the south of the country, in Jerusalem and the West Bank, GPS devices this week placed users in Cairo.

GPS satellites send radio signals to GPS receivers, which interpret these signals to calculate the precise location.

GPS jamming is done by using a stronger radio signal that overwhelms and blocks satellite signals. This results in the GPS receiver being unable to determine geographic location.

As for manipulation by showing a location different from the real location, it is done using modified GPS waves, where a different location point is sent intentionally.

Ugal Inna says that Israeli security forces use a practice called GPS spoofing, which interferes with GPS receivers such as those found in smartphones and fakes the device’s actual location, and can divert GPS-guided weapons such as unmanned aircraft. pilot. (free)