GPS signals were disrupted in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Thursday, throwing services such as smartphone mapping and food delivery into disarray, according to a new report from the city. times of israel. Although this news has not been officially confirmed, it seems that the Israeli military may be responsible for the GPS outage, as the country expects Iran to launch a retaliatory missile attack in the coming days.
‘What wartime GPS scrambling looks like,’ says a Tel Aviv resident write on X. “I took a 6-minute trip on a rental scooter in Tel Aviv and the app thought I traveled 200 kilometers to Beirut.”
After the terrorist attacks on October 7, 2023, Israel regularly disrupted GPS signals in its northern airspace to confuse Israeli-launched missiles. Hezbollah from Lebanon. But Thursday’s GPS spoofing – which disrupted apps such as Waze, Google Maps and Gett Taxi – appears to be the first time the tactic has been deployed in the major city of Tel Aviv since the war began.
Israel is thought to be behind missile attack On Monday, a shooting occurred at the Iranian Embassy in Damascus, Syria, and Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior member of the Iranian military, was killed.Israel has denied being behind the attack, but U.S. officials have made clear they believe Israel carried out the attack and have Signal sent to Iran The United States is not involved.
That attack in Syria prompted Israel to prepare for potential retaliatory attacks that could come soon.In fact, former top Israeli intelligence chief Amos Yadlin told Israeli media Huatai Technology News outlets predict Iran may attack Israel on Friday, the last day of Ramadan.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Iran took action tomorrow. Don’t panic. Don’t run to shelter,” Yadlin told CTech, citing Israel’s powerful missile defense system. “Please be prepared for tomorrow, and then depending on the consequences of the attack, the attack may escalate.”
As Bloomberg points out, any direct Iranian attack on major Israeli cities would escalate the situation and pose risks expand warOn October 7, Hamas launched an attack that killed approximately 1,200 Israelis. Another 240 Israelis were held hostage.At least 32,600 Palestinians died in the ensuing war in Gaza United Nations.
The United States has conducted GPS spoofing exercises, but there are no known cases of the country using the practice in war. Ukraine, Russia, China This strategy has also been adopted in recent years. But it’s unclear whether Israel’s attempts to confuse Iranian rockets will work. The world may find out about this sooner rather than later.