Emergency button
Emergency buttonISTOCK

One soldier's mistake at a recruitment center of the 98th Division caused an emergency call-up of thousands of reserve soldiers on the morning of Independence Day.

On Thursday, Independence Day morning, some 5,000 soldiers from the reserves were called up. "Emergency recruitment has begun. Immediately report to the meeting point," the message, which was quickly found to be a mistake, said.

The IDF decided to immediately investigate the incident and the task was assigned to the division commander, Brig. Gen. Yaron Finkelman, who was at the time diving at the Kinneret.

Yossi Yehoshua, military correspondent for Yediot Aharonot, reported that the false announcement also surprised Finkelman and forced him to get the division quickly back to routine and provide explanations to his subordinates and commanders.

The investigation revealed that a soldier in the recruitment center of the division had mistakenly pressed the emergency button activating a real call-up of the division while she was conducting a routine morning check of the new recruitment alert system.

The IDF Spokesman said: "An initial investigation in the division indicates that there was a routine examination of the reserve summoning systems, during which a human error occurred due to lack of adherence to accepted procedures. We emphasize that, a short time later, a message was issued to all reservists explaining that there had been a mistake."