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Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin have identified an Israeli air base as a large source of widespread GPS disruptions affecting civilian airline navigation in the Middle East, reported The New York Times. 

The spoofing disruptions involve the transmission of manipulated GPS signals, which can cause airplane instruments to misread their location. Lead researchers Todd Humphreys and Zach Clements stated they are “highly confident” that Ein Shemer Airfield in northern Israel is the source of these attacks. The Israeli military declined The New York Times’ request for comment. 

The research team utilized data emitted by the spoofer and picked up by satellites in low-Earth orbit (LEO) to determine its location. They then confirmed their calculations using ground data collected in Israel.  

Spoofing, along with GPS jamming, has significantly increased over the past three years, especially near war zones such as Ukraine and Gaza. In these areas, militaries interfere with navigation signals to redirect aerial attacks. 

The Middle East has emerged as a hotspot for GPS spoofing, with The New York Times reporting that a separate analysis estimates more than 50,000 flights have been affected in the region in 2024 alone. Researchers from SkAI Data Services and the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, analyzeding data from the OpenSky Network and, found that these attacks have led pilots to mistakenly believe they were above airports in Beirut or Cairo. 

Swiss International Air Lines told The New York TimesNYT that their flights are spoofed “almost every day over the Middle East.” 

The issue extends beyond the region, with Estonia and other Baltic nations having blamed Russia for disrupting signals in their airspaces. Additionally, in April 2024, Finnair temporarily suspended flights to Tartu, Estonia, amid the rise of GPS jamming in the region affecting civilian air travel.  

The attacks have not led to significant safety risks as pilots can use alternative navigation methods. However, they do raise concerns. 

Jeremy Bennington, vice president of Spirent Communications, told The New York Times, “Losing GPS is not going to cause airplanes to fall out of the sky. But I also don’t want to deny the fact that we are removing layers of safety.” 

The spoofing attacks may cause false alerts about planes being too close to the ground, leading to navigation confusion and possibly compromising flight safety. 

As these disruptions continue to affect large areas far from active conflict zones, the aviation industry and international authorities are under increasing pressure to address this emerging threat to air travel security. 

<p>The post Israeli air base identified as alleged source of GPS disruptions in Mideast first appeared on GPS World.</p>

One of the things you can be sure of in the Ukraine-Russia war is that one side or the other is jamming the other’s communications and sat-nav guidance systems. An apparent consequence is that there is likely some “spill-over” to adjacent areas. For Israel, however, it looks like it’s more directed jamming rather than incidental.

Israel GPS jamming. (Image: GPS Jam.org)

In this environment of intentional GPS jamming, it’s not surprising that Israel has produced a leading anti-jam technology company, called InfiniDome, in Caesarea (between Haifa and Tel-Aviv). According to co-founder Omer Sharar, the company has been working to defend GPS signals for more than seven years and has also seen the rise of devices to jam the GPS L1 frequency that anyone can buy online for $100.  

 Just as Ukraine is throwing explosive cardboard UAVs with little cost at Russian occupying forces, a few carefully placed low-cost jammers could inflict serious damage on a country’s navigation capabilities. 

 However, a 2019 presentation by Todd Humphreys identified the source of interference and spoofing at that time, a Russian high-power jammer located at a Russian base in Syria. 

Humphreys used instrumentation on the International Space Station (ISS) to gather data on the directed interference but concluded that the jamming in Israel could be a consequence of Russia’s efforts to protect its troops in Syria from UAV attacks. The Russian Khmeimim Air Base is on the Mediterranean coast and attacks are thought to come from rebels within Syria.

With the current GPS jamming out of Syria, most commercial aircraft traffic flying into Ben Gurion International Airport is significantly affected as flights cross from over the coast from the Mediterranean. Longer flight tracks deeper southeast into Israel are necessary, probably relying on VOR and DME ground station waypoints before turning back northwest to capture the instrument landing system (ILS) into the airport. This costs time and fuel and causes aircraft to overfly settlements where noise can be a real problem.

Most readily available jammer electronics only output interference disrupting GPS L1, which is most commonly installed for vehicle tracking and UAV guidance. InfiniDome has successfully protected trucking, UAV operations and others in Israel and around the world with its Infinidome GPSdome-1 and GPSdome-2 anti-jam products.

Gpsdome-1 (left) protects GPS L1. GPSdome-2 (right) protects GPS L1/L2 or GPS L1/GLONASS L1.

Two antennas 10 cm to 25 cm apart enable GPSDome-1 algorithms to detect and null out a GPS L1 jammer. GPSDome-2 accommodates up to four antennas and can null up to three directional signals on both GPS L1 and L2 or GPS L1 and GLONASS L1. 

InfiniDome is currently working with an aerospace company to integrate its anti-jam technology with airborne inertial/GPS and qualify the integrated system for use in civil aviation, with the objective of maintaining max 3% drift when fully jammed. This will introduce certified anti-jam technology into civil aviation use — something that will provide some jamming protection, which airlines desperately need going forward. In addition, other high-end UAV manufacturers are potential customers for this new system. 

While the ongoing conflict and the devastating loss of life is forefront as each day of the war passes, these anti-jam solutions may ultimately help solve signal degradation problems. While there is going to be a significant impact on commercial airline travel to and from Israel while hostilities continue, we can maybe see the way to a possible long-term solution for the intense jamming from which the region has suffered for many years. 

<p>The post GPS jamming in Israel first appeared on GPS World.</p>