Waze resumes real-time traffic updates in Israel despite war

The Waze navigation application resumed displaying real-time traffic updates in Israel on Sunday for the first time in two months. This decision was coordinated with the IDF’s Home Front Command. Simultaneously, Google Maps has also partially restored its traffic display.

Following Hamas' murderous attack and the outbreak of the war in Gaza on October 7, navigation apps in Israel, including Waze (owned by Google), Google Maps, and Apple Maps, ceased showing users traffic congestion and driver reports. This was in accordance with Home Front Command instructions, citing concerns that such displays could compromise security by providing information on security force movements or rocket impact locations to Israel’s enemies. Despite this restriction, the applications continued to collect data for calculating travel routes, but the end users could not see this information.