NEW DELHI: Amid increasing tensions with Iran after the attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Israel has blocked GPS across large areas of the country for disrupting drones and missiles, if launched on Tel Aviv.

Iran has promised to strongly respond after its consulate building was attacked in Syria, in which 13 people were killed, including a senior general. It was alleged that Israel had carried out the attack.

It was announced by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) that the leaves of all the soldiers, who were part of combat units, were halted. Days earlier, Israel had called up the reservists to bolster air defence units.

As per media reports, Israeli authorities have been estimating that an Iranian response is likely to come on Friday, which is Jerusalem Day or Quds Day and is also the last Friday in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The GPS systems were disrupted by the officials in central parts of Israel as a defensive measure to interfere with weapons that depend on it to set their location.

Because of this, Israeli citizens faced difficulty in using location-based app services in major cities like Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, which are far from active combat zones.

It was shown by the monitoring website GPSJAM that there was widespread interference with location signals across Israel.

IDF spokesman Rear Adm Daniel Hagari said that GPS blocking, which is also called "spoofing", is being used by the country.

The people in Israel have been appealed to manually set their location on the app which gives alerts regarding incoming rocket attacks so that it remains accurate even in the GPS interference, reported the Times of Israel.

GPS has already remained disrupted in northern Israel, close to the border with Lebanon, where the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah have been fighting with Israel on a daily basis for the last six months.

The IDF also appealed to not to panic buy. Taking to X, IDF Rear Adm Hagari said, "There is no need to buy generators, store food and withdraw money from ATMs. As we have done until today, we will immediately update any change if it is in an official and orderly manner."

Israel's media outlets have reported that some of the country's embassies have been alerted or are evacuated in the wake of potential Iranian attacks.