Woodkirk Stone
Detailed images of sensitive sites in Israel, such as the Dimona nuclear reactor, are now widely available online due to the Trump era cash in regulations that previously effectively censored satellite imagery produced by private American companies.
The Kyl-Bingaman Amendment regulated the resolution of publicly available satellite imagery for Israel since 1997, until the surprise change in legislation last year.
The amendment had effectively imposed US government censorship on commercial images of Israel, an example of which is that Israeli images on Google Maps often appear blurry in a way that they are not in other countries. .
Earlier this year, the Haaretz daily asked Google if it would update its image of Israel in light of the legislative change, but the tech giant said it had “no intention of to share”.
In a statement released last week, Mapbox, an online map provider for websites, said the resolution of its images for Israel, the West Bank and Gaza has now quadrupled.
Having previously only been able to display images at resolutions as low as 2 meters per pixel, it has now upgraded them to 50 centimeters per pixel, in line with its images from the rest of the world, the company said.
We can finally provide 50cm images of Israel and Palestine. Discover the new images of @Maxar in our last blog post: https://t.co/bmFEJv5Yia pic.twitter.com/ZGgrzZYQm7
– Mapbox (@Mapbox) October 26, 2021
The tech company uses data from Maxar’s WorldView satellites, which it has described as “the most advanced, highest-resolution Earth observation instruments of their kind, aside from spy satellites we know nothing about. not”.
Some security experts have said the improved images of Israel could have negative implications for the country’s defense.
“Seemingly unclassified information makes Israel very vulnerable to the enemy,” said Major General (retired) Giora Eiland, former head of Israel’s National Security Council who served for 33 years in the military. Israeli, especially as head of its strategic planning. Branch, the Ynet news site said.
Former national security adviser Yaakov Amidror warned that the footage could make it easier for Israel’s adversaries to direct their weapons.
“The clearer the image they have of the target, the better they can aim and the greater their ability to deal damage,†he told Ynet.
Mapbox’s images are not the first to appear on sensitive Israeli sites. Earlier this year, satellite images from Planet Labs Inc. showed the covert Dimona nuclear facility, supposedly at the center of the undeclared national atomic weapons program, undergoing what appeared to be its biggest construction project in decades. decades.
The International Fissile Materials Panel (IPFM) published similar images in February.