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False Alarm Sends Bnei Brak Into Panic as IDF Blames Technical Glitch for Phantom Missile Warning

IDF clarifies a false pre-alert sent to Bnei Brak and central Israel Sunday stemmed from a technical error, not a real missile threat.

False Alarm Sends Bnei Brak Into Panic as IDF Blames Technical Glitch for Phantom Missile Warning

Residents of Bnei Brak and other areas of central Israel received an advance warning of incoming missile fire on Sunday morning, only for the IDF Spokesperson's Unit to clarify shortly afterward that the alert had been triggered by a technical malfunction and did not reflect any real threat to Israel.

According to the IDF, a preliminary notification was mistakenly pushed to mobile phones across parts of central Israel. The army said it is examining whether the error stemmed from the misidentification of Iranian missile launches directed at Jordan as launches directed at Israeli territory, though this explanation has not been fully confirmed. The IDF stressed that no missile had been fired from Iran toward Israel at the time the alert went out.

Bnei Brak's emergency and security division confirmed that the cellular alert messages received Sunday morning by some Cellcom subscribers in the city stemmed from a malfunction, adding that the notification did not reflect an actual threat and that there was no instruction to enter protected spaces. The municipality urged residents to rely solely on official Home Front Command updates and to avoid spreading unverified rumors.

The IDF said the incident is under review in order to prevent similar errors in the future, and it called on the public to continue following Home Front Command guidance, including entering protected spaces in the event of a siren, even amid uncertainty over an alert's accuracy.

The false alarm is not the first of its kind. In May, sirens were mistakenly triggered in Sderot, Nir Am and Ibim after a defensive interceptor was fired at a false target. Sunday's error came against the backdrop of renewed tension with Iran, with the Israeli Air Force having carried out strikes on Iranian targets overnight and the IDF bracing for the possibility of several more days of confrontation. Home Front Command alert systems have been operating on heightened footing amid the tensions, with hospitals around the country also preparing for emergency scenarios.
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