Israeli army mistakenly calls up tens of thousands of reservists

By Abdelraouf Arnaout

JERUSALEM (AA) - The Israeli army apologized Thursday for mistakenly sending automated call-up messages to tens of thousands of Israeli reservists.

"In the night hours, a planned maintenance operation was carried out on the communication system in the Israeli army, as a part of it malfunctioned," the army tweeted.

"As a result, an error message was sent in English," it said.

The reservists received call-up messages via phone calls and text messages.

The army said that "no reserve soldier has been called up for service," and added that "the problem has already been dealt with during the night, and its causes are being investigated."

* Writing by Mahmoud Barakat