The Ides of March bring many things: the overthrow of brutal dictators, the return of spring to more northern climates, and quickly-forgotten George Clooney movies. But according to a recent leak out of Samsung Israel, it could also bring the much-anticipated Ice Cream Sandwich update to the Samsung Galaxy S II. The localized Samsung office posted on its Facebook page that updates for in-country phones would begin on March 15th. The post was quickly removed – either due to the fact that the international arm doesn’t want the rest of us to know, or there’s been some kind of delay already.

Samsung words, roughly translated, were:

We promised we were working on it. You waited patiently. And on 15 March it’ll arrive: Android version 4, ICS, to tens of thousands of GALAXY S II devices purchased from cellular companies in the country or directly from us. We are very excited for the launch, hope you are too.

We know Samsung’s been working on the Ice Cream Sandwich update (plus it’s ever-present TouchWiz interface) for months. No less than three official ROMs have been leaked, and the company has confirmed that almost all of its mid-range and high-end devices will be upgraded eventually. At  the time they gave a vague “Q1″ as a time frame, but we all know that’s not exactly set in stone – a rumored March 1st update obviously didn’t pan out.

US readers, keep in mind that Samsung Israel was almost certainly referring to the international GSM version of the phone. Because of the way US carriers work as a middleman for software development and updates, official over-the-air upgrades to AT&T, T-Mobile and other devices would likely come months later than the international update – whenever that might be. Of course, rooted users have been enjoying Ice Cream Sandwich (in both stock and TouchWiz flavors) for months now.

[device id=56] [via android central]