Zein Khalil / Anadolu

A false phone alert about rocket fire on Sunday caused panic among residents of Bnei Brak, east of Tel Aviv, before the Israeli army announced that the alert was due to a technical glitch in a telecommunications company, at a time when Israel is continuing its preparations for possible rocket attacks from Iran.

The Israeli Broadcasting Authority said that residents of Bnei Brak received an early warning on their phones on Sunday morning about rocket fire.

Later, the Home Front Command of the Israeli army clarified in a brief statement that the alert was caused by a malfunction, confirming that the incident is under investigation.

For its part, the Israeli army said in a statement that "maintenance and upgrade work on the infrastructure carried out by a cellular telecommunications company led to the sending of a number of old messages stuck in the system."

It added that this caused an advance alert to be sent to mobile phones in the city of Bnei Brak, stressing that it was a "technical glitch at the cellular telecommunications company," not a security incident.

This comes as Israeli government ministers approved on Sunday, via a telephone poll, Defense Minister Israel Katz's proposal to extend the validity of the declaration of a "special situation in the home front" until July 28.

The government said in a statement that the decision was based on security agencies' assessments that there is justification for continuing to grant the security establishment and the Home Front Command the necessary powers to deal with security threats.

In context, the Broadcasting Authority quoted unnamed Israeli security sources as saying that "there is a high probability of an attack on the civilian home front."

This comes amid escalating military confrontation between the United States and Iran, after the two sides exchanged military strikes in the past hours, while the Iranian Revolutionary Guard announced the closure of the Strait of Hormuz to maritime navigation until further notice, due to what it described as "security instability resulting from foreign interference."