Is your phone displaying your location as Rafik Hariri Airport in Beirut while you’re walking the streets of Egypt’s Cairo? Or are you unable to order a Bolt or Uber in Beirut because the apps believe you’re at Queen Alia Airport in Amman, Jordan?
Many citizens in Lebanon, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Cyprus, and Turkey have reported that their vehicle GPS systems, the location app Life360, Google Maps, and other apps are displaying wildly incorrect locations, prompting accusations of GPS jamming.
Since the war in Gaza began in October, Israel has intensified GPS jamming, primarily in the north, as a measure against potential Hezbollah strikes, according to Reuters.
While GPS jamming can disrupt military communications and guided weapons, it also interferes with civilian communication systems and, more dangerously, civil aviation. This interference can affect commercial aircraft navigation, increasing the risk of accidents.
Why Israel relies on GPS jamming
GPS jamming or “spoofing” manipulates data to trick a device’s GPS receiver into displaying a false location.
Spoofing is commonly used in warfare to disrupt communications and GPS signals in combat zones or during military operations. Freddy Khoueiry, a global security analyst for the Middle East and North Africa at the risk intelligence firm RANE, explained this in an interview with The New Arab.
It interferes with enemy navigation systems and precision-guided weapons, such as missiles and drones that rely on GPS for accurate targeting. As a result, GPS jamming hinders an opponent’s ability to use drones and precision-guided munitions, key assets in Hezbollah’s arsenal, that depend on GPS for precision targeting.
Israel has previously used jamming tactics in Lebanon, notably during the 2006 war when it disrupted all communications and GPS in the border area, rendering both cell and satellite phones unusable.
However, since the war in Gaza began in October, Israel has intensified its use of GPS jamming and extended it to parts of Lebanon, fueled by fears of a broader conflict with Hezbollah that has now escalated into a war.
There is no evidence to suggest that Hezbollah or Hamas have similar jamming capabilities.
How GPS jamming disrupts air travel
In 2024 alone, more than 50,000 civilian flights over the Middle East have been disrupted by spoofing attacks that mislead aircraft GPS receivers, according to a study from the University of Texas. This interference disrupts commercial aircraft navigation, increasing the risk of accidents.
For instance, due to Israel’s GPS jamming, pilots have mistakenly thought they were flying over airports in Beirut and Cairo, according to researchers from SkAI Data Services and the Zurich University of Applied Sciences.
In August 2023, before the Gaza war began, airline pilots reported that fake GPS signals were disrupting their navigation systems, forcing them to rely on verbal directions from air traffic controllers, as noted by The New Arab.
The SkAI Data Services study noted a sharp rise in spoofing and GPS jamming over the past three years, particularly near war zones like Ukraine and Gaza, where militaries interfere with navigation signals to counter missile and drone attacks.
Lebanon has protested Israel’s use of GPS jamming, warning that it endangers civil aviation in the country.