Booby-trapped pagers and walkie-talkies are not the only ways Israel has been hitting Hezbollah's communications.
In fact, one of Israel's other ploys, while less deadly, has been causing chaos for the broader Lebanese population, as well as confusion for people within its own borders.
Since the start of the Gaza war, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has been deploying a tactic known as GPS "spoofing", designed to fool enemy missiles and rockets that rely on the global positioning system technology to aim at their target.
And while it may have helped deflect some aerial attacks, it has also been disorienting for everyday people — making modern map technology on smart devices unavailable and disrupting important civil infrastructure, commercial aircraft and even dating and food delivery apps.
The situation has even led some Israelis to return to traditional paper maps, as an analogue solution to the digital disruption.
What is happening?
GPS is one of the most significant digital developments the world has seen in recent decades.
It's made navigating using smartphones a breeze and is the main reason why digital-age inventions like online dating, rideshare and delivery apps have become commonplace around the world.
But if you try to use them on your phone across a large chunk of the Middle East at the moment, you'll find it's impossible.
In Israel's third largest city, Haifa, for example, you could be standing in the German Colony or wandering through its gardens on Mount Carmel — and the phone's GPS apps will tell you that you're actually a hundred kilometres away.
On the tarmac of Beirut's international airport, to be exact.
That's where Israel has chosen to misdirect the GPS receiver.
Other less-common choices that have been recorded have also included an industrial estate in Cairo, Egypt.
Professor Todd Humphreys from the University of Texas told the ABC the chosen location was "fairly arbitrary".
"It doesn't really matter as to their ability to fool a GPS receiver where the spoofed destination is," he said.
Disruption to personal navigation (and fast food ordering) may well be classified as an inconvenience, rather than a pressing safety concern — but the practice has much more severe consequences.
What is 'spoofing'?
"Spoofing", in terms of GPS, is about making a device such as a mobile phone — or in war, a missile — think it's in a totally different location.
It's not blocking the GPS signal. It's confusing it.
In normal circumstances, satellites circling the Earth send out microwave signals containing position and time information that GPS receivers use to calculate their location.
But those waves can be overpowered, and the information contained within distorted.
"The signals that come down from GPS satellites far above us don't have any encryption on them or embedded cryptographic authentication," Professor Humphreys said.
"And so it's possible to mimic these signals, to falsify them, and broadcast them from somewhere else."
Research conducted by Professor Humphreys and his colleagues determined at least one location of the spoofing transmitter to be in the Ein Shemer Airfield in northern Israel.
He says initially Israel denied responsibility for the spoofing as it is considered a dangerous act, but later acknowledged it was happening, calling it "GPS interruption".
The IDF has not responded to the ABC's request for comment.
Why is Israel doing it?
Israel had been on high alert for attacks from Iran and the Iranian-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah for weeks after two high-profile assassinations.
This was in addition to trading fire with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah for the past 11 months.
So, Israel is shielding against any GPS-guided weapons fired in its direction.
"If you're choosing between just jamming the signal and spoofing the signal, spoofing is a more potent defence," Professor Humphreys said.
"Because a spoofing signal gets past many of the checks inside a GPS receiver, it can be less powerful and yet have an effect further from the transmitter."
Spoofing is being deployed almost constantly in cities like Haifa in northern Israel and Tyre in southern Lebanon, regularly in other parts of those countries and the Occupied Palestinian territories, and sometimes even in Jordan and other nations in the region.
When standing on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem overlooking the Palestinian neighbourhood of Issawiyah, the same thing was happening.
Despite this, Hezbollah demonstrated its reach and ability to evade defensive systems when it sent in a video drone to film Haifa and when it launched its long-awaited response to the Israeli assassination of military commander Fuad Shukr in late August.
Many rocket launches were prevented by a pre-emptive Israeli attack or intercepted by Israel's iron dome defence system but the GPS spoofing may have also contributed to the minimal impact of the strikes.
Jennifer Parker, an expert associate with the National Security College at the Australian National University, says it's all part of the electronic warfare spectrum, which includes actions such as interfering with telecommunication.
She says it's been happening in the Middle East for a number of years but has intensified in recent months during the war.
"When you think about missiles and uncrewed aerial vehicles that have been targeting Israel, a lot of them use GPS to actually direct them to the target," she says.
"So if you can jam the GPS, you can actually stop that weapon system from being accurate."
But she says this measure is dangerous for other reasons.
"Israel has put out notices that they are doing this jamming. But still, when you think about how reliant modern society is on GPS for navigation, especially when we think about the civil aviation industry, it does create some dangers."
What is it impacting?
Abed Kataya from non-profit SMEX — which advocates for and advances human rights in digital spaces across West Asia and North Africa — told the ABC that this tactic was "depriving aviation from one layer of safety".
Aeroplanes rely on accurate GPS data for their most basic functions, including measuring their altitude. When the incorrect signals are given, sensors begin to fail, flash warnings and instruct pilots to pull up.
Professor Humphreys says because of the frequency, pilots have become accustomed to this and sometimes shut off the alarms or the GPS system, which is dangerous, despite there being no accidents so far.
In March, a Turkish Airlines flight to Beirut was unable to land due to the GPS spoofing, instead circling the airport for 40 minutes before turning back to Turkey.
During that time, when tensions were high in anticipation of an Iranian attack, Jordan also reported interference with its air traffic that prompted planes to use alternative navigation systems.
In July, Lebanon filed a complaint to the United Nations and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) over the GPS spoofing, which also affects aircraft transiting the Mediterranean.
"This has become such a problem that it is being discussed at the highest levels of aviation governance," Professor Humphreys said.
Beyond air traffic, the spoofing is hitting maritime and land movement as well as "affecting emergency responders fighting wildfires and medical emergencies [in Lebanon]," Mr Kataya said.
But far less serious ramifications are also manifesting in daily life.
Lebanese personality Anthony Rahayel took to social media in June to warn how even his small video drone was affected and crashed into the mountains.
"If the GPS simply turned off, the drone would stay on, no problem, you can bring it back," he explained.
"But for the GPS to tell you it's now in Beirut's airport, it immediately goes haywire.
"It starts flying around in the air, going left and right, the remote doesn't stop it, all I could do was find out which mountain it crashed into."
In Israel, the constant disruption led to people buying all available paper maps.
In January, one of the country's biggest providers said they had sold out and that they couldn't print them fast enough to keep up with the demand.
Customers and workers using delivery apps in Jordan also suffer a confusing fate.
When a food order was made in the capital Amman, the app estimated the arrival in 90 minutes, but showed the driver was 12 hours away coming from Cairo.
This indicated the employee's GPS was being spoofed.
Meanwhile, those trying to date online are finding their match may not be as close as they think.
Profiles in Beirut set to search within an 8-kilometre radius pick up Israeli users tens of kilometres south.
The app displays a "Nearby" icon and says the other person is 6 kilometres away.
Professor Humphreys says it's not clear if this practice is considered legal or not as the International Telecommunications Union "has spoken out both sides of its mouth".
"On the one hand, it says, 'Thou shalt not transmit any signals in the GNSS bands. These are sacred bands, bands reserved for aviation, for safety of life'," he says.
"But in a different portion of the … constitution, they basically give carte blanche to countries over security threats."
He says this allows any country to "claim that it feels threatened" and disrupt radio signals even if they spread beyond its borders and spill over into civilian life and systems such as aviation.
"If anybody who has the merest threat of attack, whether by drones or missiles, can engage in GPS spoofing, then it really calls into question whether GPS could be used at all in safety-of-life systems going forward."
