(Bloomberg) — Israel scrambled navigational signals over the Tel Aviv metropolitan area on Thursday as the country prepared for a potential Iranian attack on the economic center.
Traffic was delayed, food delivery disrupted and transportation applications showed Tel Aviv residents to be in Beirut, Lebanon. The measures were taken by Israeli officials to disrupt GPS-navigated drones or missiles that Iran or its proxies might fire at the country.
Tensions have soared since Monday, when a strike on a Iranian diplomatic compound in Syria killed senior Iranian military officials. Iran blamed Israel and vowed to retaliate, though its unclear whether the Islamic Republic plans to do so directly or via the militias it funds across the Middle East.
Iran’s main proxy group is Hezbollah, which is based in Lebanon and has been trading fire with Israeli forces almost daily since the war in Gaza erupted in October.
A direct Iranian strike on an Israeli city would be a first and mark a major escalation of hostilities, risking the conflict widening into a regional war.
“We have good intelligence and good early warnings,” Amos Yadlin, a former director of Israeli military intelligence, said at a briefing for foreign journalists in Israel on Thursday. “But it may come, so be tuned.”
Israel hasn’t issued new security directives to its citizens since the Damascus strike, but the military paused leave for all combat units and bolstered manpower in its air defense units.
For months, the military has been interfering with navigational signals in northern Israel and the Red Sea port city of Eilat. Both have come under frequent rocket and drone fire from militants in Lebanon and Yemen.
Israel Defense Forces Spokesman Daniel Hagari acknowledged on Thursday evening that the military was responsible for the GPS disruption, the first time that step has been applied to the Tel Aviv area during the six months of the Israel-Hamas war.
“We are aware that the disruptions are inconvenient, but it is an essential and necessary tool in our defense capabilities,” Hagari said in a televised statement.
The GPS interference affected numerous applications without warning, including Waze, Google Maps, Gett Taxi, Moovit and Wolt.
Israel and Hamas have been at war since the Gaza-based militant group invaded Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostage. Hamas is designated a terrorist organization by the US and European Union.
Israel launched a ground invasion in Gaza a few weeks later. Over 32,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, according to the Hamas -run health ministry, and the country is under increasing pressure over civilian deaths and a lack of aid distributed in the enclave.
–With assistance from Alisa Odenheimer.
(Updates with statement by military spokesman in second, ninth, tenth paragraphs)
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