BEIRUT: Uber driver Hussein Khalil was battling traffic in Beirut when he found himself in the Gaza Strip — according to his online map, anyway — as location jamming blamed on Israel disrupts life in Lebanon.
“We’ve been dealing with this problem a lot for around five months,” said Khalil, 36.
“Sometimes we can’t work at all,” the disgruntled driver said on Beirut’s chaotic, car-choked streets.
“Of course, we are losing money.”
For months, whacky location data on apps have caused confusion in Lebanon, where the Hezbollah militant group has been engaged in cross-border clashes with Israel.
The near-daily exchanges started after Hamas, Hezbollah’s Palestinian ally, launched an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, triggering the ongoing war in Gaza.
In March, Beirut lodged a complaint with the United Nations about “attacks by Israel on Lebanese sovereignty in the form of jamming the airspace around” the Beirut airport.
Khalil showed screenshots of apps displaying his locations not only in the Gazan city of Rafah — around 300 kilometers away — but also in east Lebanon near the Syrian border, when he was actually in Beirut.
With online maps loopy, Khalil said “one passenger phoned me and asked, ‘Are you in Baalbek?’” referring to a city in east Lebanon.
“I told her: ‘No, I’ll be at your location (in Beirut) in two minutes’.”
Numerous residents have reported their online map location as appearing at Beirut airport while they were actually elsewhere in the capital.
Since Hamas’s October 7 attack, Israel has taken measures to disrupt Global Positioning System (GPS) functionality for the group and other opponents.
The Israeli army said in October that it disrupted GPS “in a proactive manner for various operational needs.”
It warned of “various and temporary effects on location-based applications.”
Specialist site gpsjam.org, which compiles geolocation signal disruption data based on aircraft data reports, reported a low level of disruption around Gaza on October 7.
But the next day, disturbances increased around the Palestinian territory and also along the border between Israel and Lebanon.
On June 28, the level of interference showing on the site was high above Lebanon and parts of Syria, Jordan and Israel.
An AFP journalist in Jerusalem said her location appeared as if she was in Cairo, Egypt’s capital about 400 kilometers away.
The interference has at times extended to European Union member Cyprus, some 200 kilometers from Lebanon, where AFP journalists have reported their GPS location appearing at Beirut airport instead of on the island.
“Israel is using GPS jamming to disrupt or interfere with Hezbollah’s communications,” said Freddy Khoueiry, global security analyst for the Middle East and North Africa at risk intelligence company RANE.
It is “also using GPS spoofing... to send false GPS signals, aimed at disrupting and hindering drones’ and precision-guided missiles’ abilities to function or hit their targets,” he added.
The Iran-backed Hezbollah has “a large arsenal” of such GPS-assisted weapons, he noted.
The cross-border exchanges have killed more than 490 people in Lebanon — mostly fighters — according to an AFP tally, with 26 people killed in northern Israel, according to authorities there.
Fears have grown of all-out conflict between the foes that last went to war in 2006.
Asked about GPS jamming in northern Israel, where Hezbollah has concentrated its attacks, a spokesperson for Israel’s defense ministry said’s Jerusalem office that “currently, we are unable to discuss operational matters.”
Lebanon’s civil aviation chief Fadi El-Hassan said that since March, the body has asked pilots flying in or out of Beirut to “rely on ground navigation equipment and not on GPS signals due to the ongoing interference in the region.”
Ground navigation equipment is typically used as a back-up system.
Hassan expressed frustration that “in this technological age, a pilot who wants to land at our airport cannot use GPS due to Israeli enemy interference.”
Lebanon is ensuring “the maintenance of ground navigation equipment at all times in order to provide the necessary signals for pilots to land safely,” he said.
Avedis Seropian, a licensed pilot, said he had stopped using GPS in recent months.
“We got used to the situation. I don’t rely on (GPS) at all... I fly relying on a compass and paper map,” he said.
But he said not having GPS, even as a fallback, was disconcerting.
When geolocation data is wrong and visibility is poor, “you can suddenly find yourself in a state of panic,” he said.
“That could lead to an accident or a disaster.”
Lebanon says Israeli GPS jamming confounding ground, air traffic
https://arab.news/jfqng
Lebanon says Israeli GPS jamming confounding ground, air traffic
- For months, whacky location data on apps have caused confusion in Lebanon
- Israel has taken measures to disrupt Global Positioning System functionality for Hamas and other opponents
Returning Syrian refugees cut global displaced total
- UN believes 1.5m from abroad and 2m internally displaced will be home by the end of 2025
GENEVA: Refugees returning to Syria have cut the global total of displaced people from a record peak at the end of 2024, the UN said on Thursday.
More than 500,000 have returned from abroad and 1.2 million internally displaced people have gone back to their home areas since Bashar Assad was deposed in December. The UN refugee agency estimates 1.5 million from abroad and 2 million internally displaced will return by the end of 2025.
Worldwide, a record 123.2 million were forcibly displaced by last December, but the total had fallen to 122.1 million by the end of April. The main drivers of displacement were conflicts in Sudan, Myanmar and Ukraine.
“We are living in a time of intense volatility ... with modern warfare creating a fragile, harrowing landscape marked by acute human suffering,” UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi said. “We must redouble our efforts to search for peace and find long-lasting solutions for refugees and others forced to flee their homes.”
Syria condemns ‘blatant violation’ of sovereignty after Israeli incursion
- One person killed and 7 captured during the pre-dawn operation in Beit Jin, Interior Ministry says
DAMASCUS: Syria’s Interior Ministry condemned an Israeli incursion in southern Syria, saying Israeli forces killed one person and abducted seven others, calling it a “blatant violation” of the country’s sovereignty.
“We affirm that these repeated provocations constitute a blatant violation of the sovereignty of the Syrian Arab Republic,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that “these practices cannot lead the region to stability and will only result in further tension and turmoil.”
The Israeli military said those detained during the pre-dawn raid on Beit Jin were suspected of planning attacks against Israel, and that weapons also were found in the area.
They were taken back to Israel for questioning, the military said.
One person was killed and seven captured in the operation, Syria’s Interior Ministry said, while the father of the young man killed said he had a history of mental illness.
Since the fall of President Bashar Assad’s government in early December, Israeli forces have moved into several areas in southern Syria and conducted hundreds of airstrikes throughout the country, destroying much of the assets of the Syrian army.
Local broadcaster Syria TV described Thursday’s raid as being carried out by about 100 Israeli troops who stormed Beit Jin, near the border with Lebanon, and called out the names of several people targeted for arrest through loudspeakers.
Syria’s Interior Ministry said such incursions spike tensions in the region.
“Such repeated provocative acts are a flagrant violation of Syria’s sovereignty,” the ministry said in a statement.
Village official Walid Okasha said that Israeli troops had entered the outskirts of Beit Jin in recent months, but that this was the first time they entered the center of the village.
He added that Thursday’s operation came four days after an Israeli drone strike hit a car in the village, inflicting casualties.
“They came targeting specific people,” said Okasha, who denied that Hamas members were in the village.
He said the seven people taken to Israel were all Syrians and that two of them were members of the country’s new security forces.
He said the man who was killed suffered from mental illness.
Ahmad Hammadi identified the victim as his son and told the AP that he had a history of schizophrenia.
He said his son was shot dead in front of his home, and that he had no links to Hamas.
He said two of the captured men were his nephews. Hussein Safadi said his two sons, Ahmad, 32, and Mohammed, 34, were captured, adding that his younger son, who raises goats, had lived in Lebanon for years until recently.
He said his younger son was a member of the armed opposition against Assad and recently joined the security forces of the new authorities. As for why Israeli forces seized his sons, “we don’t know the reasons,” Safadi said.
During a visit to France last month, Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa said that his country is holding indirect talks with Israel to prevent hostilities from getting out of control.
Egypt blocks activists aiming to march to Gaza to draw attention to humanitarian crisis
- Egyptian authorities and activists both said Thursday that people planning to march across the Sinai Peninsula were deported
RABAT: Egypt blocked activists planning to take part in a march to Gaza, halting their attempt to reach the border and challenge Israel’s blockade on humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territory before it could begin.
Egyptian authorities and activists both said Thursday that people planning to march across the Sinai Peninsula were deported.
To draw attention to the humanitarian crisis afflicting people in Gaza, marchers have for months planned to trek about 30 miles (about 50 kilometers) from the city of Arish to Egypt’s border with the enclave on Sunday to “create international moral and media pressure” to open the crossing at Rafah and lift a blockade that has prevented aid from entering.
Saif Abu Keshek, one of the activists organizing the march, said that about 200 activists — mostly Algerians and Moroccans — were detained or deported.
But those arriving to the Cairo International Airport on Thursday afternoon were allowed into Egypt, the Spain-based activist added. Organizers have not received approval from Egyptian authorities for Sunday’s march and were evaluating how to proceed, he said.
An Egyptian official on Thursday said more than three dozen activists, mostly carrying European passports, were deported upon their arrival at the Cairo International Airport in the past two days.
The official said the activists aimed to travel to Northern Sinai “without obtaining required authorizations.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.
King Tut gold mask to leave Cairo museum after nearly 100 years
- King Tutankhamun’s treasures to move to new Grand Egyptian Museum near Giza Pyramids
- More than 5,000 artefacts from his tomb will be displayed at the $1-billion megaproject opening next month
CAIRO: After nearly a century in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, King Tutankhamun’s iconic gold mask and remaining treasures are set to move to the new Grand Egyptian Museum near the Giza Pyramids.
Visitors have just days left to see the boy king’s world-famous gold funerary mask before it joins more than 5,000 artefacts from his tomb at the GEM, a $1-billion megaproject opening on July 3.
“Only 26 objects from the Tutankhamun collection, including the golden mask and two coffins, remain here in Tahrir,” said museum director Ali Abdel Halim.
“All are set to be moved soon,” he told AFP, without confirming a specific date for the transfer.
The government has yet to officially announce when or how the last artefacts will be relocated.
Still on display are the innermost gold coffin, a gilded coffin, a gold dagger, cosmetic box, miniature coffins, royal diadem and pectorals.
Tutankhamun’s treasures, registered at the Egyptian Museum on Cairo’s Tahrir square in 1934, have long been its crown jewels.
But the neoclassical building — with faded cases, no climate control and aging infrastructure — now contrasts with the high-tech GEM.
Once open, the GEM is believed to be the largest in the world devoted to a single civilization, housing more than 100,000 artefacts — with over half on public display.
In a dedicated wing, most of King Tut’s treasures will be exhibited together for the first time in history since British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered the young pharaoh’s intact tomb in 1922.
His mummy will remain in its original resting place in Luxor’s Valley of the Kings as it is “a vital part of the archaeological site,” Egyptian officials have said.
A virtual replica, however, will be displayed at the GEM using virtual reality technology.
The Egyptian Museum in Tahrir, long the historic heart of Egyptology, has lost in 2021 other star exhibits: 22 royal mummies including Ramses II and Queen Hatshepsut that were relocated in a widely watched state procession to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Old Cairo.
Still, it is home to around 170,000 artefacts, according to the museum director, including treasures from Yuya and Thuya — Tutankhamun’s ancestors — and items from ancient Tanis, such as the golden funerary mask of King Amenemope.
A total of 32,000 artefacts have already been relocated from storage and display halls at the Tahrir museum to the GEM.
The museum’s director said the space left behind by Tutankhamun’s collection will eventually be filled by a new exhibition “on par with the significance of Tut’s treasures.”
Syria condemns Israeli incursion into Damascus countryside
- Atrack undermines Syria’s efforts to achieve stability and reconstruction, Foreign Ministry said
- Israeli forces entered Beit Jinn in Qatana area killing one civilian and detaining others
LONDON: The Syrian Arab Republic condemned an overnight incursion by Israeli forces into its southern territory, resulting in the death of a civilian and the detention of scores of residents.
“(The) escalation represents a clear violation of international law and relevant Security Council resolutions, including the 1974 Disengagement Agreement,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said in a statement on Thursday.
It added that the attack undermines Syria’s efforts to achieve stability and reconstruction and called on the UN Security Council “to take decisive steps to halt those repeated attacks and ensure respect for international law, in order to preserve regional security and stability.”
Syria’s Ministry of Interior said on Thursday that the Israeli forces killed one civilian and “kidnapped seven others during a raid in the town of Beit Jinn, (in the) Damascus countryside” overnight.
The Israeli forces, comprised of tanks, armored personnel carriers, and infantry vehicles, along with reconnaissance drones, entered Beit Jinn in the Qatana area in the country’s southern territory, 12 km from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
“These practices cannot lead to stability in the region and will only lead to further tension and unrest,” the Ministry of Interior said.
Israeli forces took the detained Syrians into the territories it controlled following the fall of the Assad regime in December, and their fate remains “unknown,” the ministry added.
