The Israeli military is investigating after an April Fools Day joke went awry.

Israeli Navy Major General Ram Rothberg decided to wind his officers up on Sunday by asking them to prepare for a ten day mission. His intention was to tell them at the last minute that a drill, which he said would be conducted in the Mediterranean with the Italian navy, was not actually going to go ahead.

But officers and seamen spent Saturday night preparing for the mission, and the following day some of them had family and friends on site ready to wave them off.

A spokesman for the military command said it deemed the stunt "inappropriate" and that it was investigating what happened "in order to derive the proper lessons.

"Although it was a joke, the incident was improper and lessons will be generated from it," added the IDF spokesman.