Three years of public operation and a first public alert of Israel's earthquake early warning system

The Israeli national Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) system, Truaa, has been operational since January 27, 2022. Based on ShakeAlert's EPIC algorithm, it issues public alerts for earthquakes of magnitude ≥ 4.5. On October 26, 2024, the Israeli Defense Forces detonated 370 tons of explosives in southern Lebanon. Truaa misidentified this as an M5.2 earthquake, triggering a public alert to over a million people. Manual analysis later revised the magnitude to M3.6. The overestimation resulted from the explosion's proximity to a seismic station and a fixed depth assumption of 8 km, despite its near-surface origin. Prior explosions were smaller and did not surpass the EEW threshold. This first public alert prompted a re-examination of Truaa's performance since its launch as an operational system. Our analysis confirms that Truaa has functioned as designed during 16 months of an explosion-dominated challenging area. However, challenges remain in discarding teleseismic and anthropogenic seismic sources. We provide an overview of Truaa's performance and adjustments to mitigate these challenges. This unusual event emphasizes the need to account for local conditions beyond the natural seismogenic sources to enhance the effectiveness of EEW systems in delivering timely and reliable alerts.