by Xinhua writer Feng Guorui

JERUSALEM, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- He was over an hour late. I sat in the bustling cafe in Tel Aviv, scrolling through my notes for the third time, wondering if he would show up at all. Just as I was about to leave, a breathless teenager burst through the door.

"I'm so sorry," he said, his face flushed from running. "The GPS signals are jammed again. My usual bus route was canceled; and I had to change buses three times to get here. It's been chaos."

His name is Eitan, a 17-year-old Israeli high school student. Like so many others, his life had been upended by the latest round of violence between Israel and its neighbors. The Israeli military had been jamming GPS signals in an effort to thwart threats from Hezbollah, Hamas, and other groups, but the impact was felt far beyond the battlefield.

"It's not just me," Eitan continued. "No one can rely on anything anymore -- maps don't work, buses don't run, deliveries are canceled. It's like our whole country has lost its sense of direction."

I understood his situation all too well. A few weeks earlier, I had been driving to an assignment in northern Israel. My GPS had worked fine for most of the journey -- until I was about 10 km from my destination. Then, suddenly, the map on my phone insisted I was somewhere in Jordan. Confused and unable to trust the device, I pulled over to consult a paper map, only to end up in a military-restricted zone. Soldiers stopped me before I could end up in bigger trouble.

For many Israelis, the jamming wasn't just an inconvenience -- it was a threat to their safety. In Haifa, I met Aaron, a 19-year-old whose phone's early warning app failed to alert him when rockets struck his neighborhood.

"The app uses GPS to send warnings," he explained. "But when the rockets hit, my phone thought I was in the middle of the Mediterranean. Instead of protecting me, the jamming put me in even more danger."

The disruptions didn't stop at Israel's borders. According to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, GPS interference was affecting parts of Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and even Cyprus. European aviation authorities had issued warnings about the potential risks to pilots and air traffic controllers.

The chaos can bring real harm to individuals. A joint study by Columbia University of the United States and an Israeli research center reveals that rates of post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and depression among Israelis has nearly doubled since the conflict began.

Aaron's story brings those statistics to life. Drafted into the military in October 2023, he spent three months with a search-and-rescue unit, combing through rubble for survivors. "Almost every day, I carried people out of destroyed homes," he told me. "Sometimes they were alive. Sometimes they weren't. Even now, I wake up from nightmares, sweating, hearing the screams. I don't know how to live a normal life anymore."

As I'm writing this, life seems to have returned to normal. With the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in effect, GPS signals have restored, buses are back on schedule, and daily routines have resumed. But for how long? Would this peace last, or would it crumble like the fragile ceasefire in November?

On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened again that if the Israeli hostages held in Gaza were not returned by Saturday, the ceasefire with Hamas would be canceled, and Israel would resume "intensive fighting" in Gaza.

The jamming of GPS signals might have been temporary disruptions. But it symbolizes a deeper disorientation -- a society caught in an endless cycle of fear and uncertainty, where history seems to repeat itself in a loop.

On this land, where every ceasefire feels like a countdown to the next conflict, the real challenge is not finding the way back to normal, but rather finding a way forward -- to a peace that endures. Enditem

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