5:34 AM on September 7, system was supposed to be back online at 10:30 yesterday morning. And no notice or emails from the ILPTO explaining what the problem is - we just get the "under construction" page when we try to go to the EFS page. This means no filing of new applications, no submission of responses, and no paying of maintenance fees, among other things. I feel sorry for the secretaries who must have been inundated with emails containing things meant for electronic filing.
For the cynical, I have a possible answer to the question about why this work was done on a weekday, and not at a time when the Israel PTO is closed (like the first week of October, which this year will coincides with hol hamoed, the intermediate days of the Succot holiday): yesterday and today, the largest patent firm in Israel is on a retreat, with only a skeleton staff in the office. So when those guys aren't working, it must be ok for the Patent Office to effectively be closed too. That may be pure speculation, but in a small country like Israel it's not an absurd speculation.
At least the Israel Patents Database is still online...which is a good argument for keeping the filing and viewing functions in separate systems. (Hear that, designers of the USPTO's thus-far-atrocious PatentCenter? Oh, right, you never listen to the public anyway...)
Previous posts on the launch of Israel's new patent EFS: New Israel PTO Patent Electronic Filing System - Introductory Meeting, Israel Electronic Patent Filing to be Offline on September 6, Oh Where, Oh Where is My Israel PTO Electronic Filing System?