Israel is on high alert for a possible direct attack from Iran that insiders say could come as soon as Friday.
The attack targeting Israel Defense Forces positions could include more than 100 drones and dozens of missiles, two US officials told CBS News.
It would be difficult for Israel to defend itself against such a large bombardment, the officials explained — though they also suggested that Iran could launch a smaller-scale attack to avoid escalating tensions much further.
“The strike plans are in front of the Supreme Leader and he is still weighing the political risk,” an adviser to Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said earlier third.
Either way, some form of retaliation for the Israeli strike on April 1 that killed seven Iranian military officers is expected imminently, the US experts cautioned.
Tehran has not commented officially on how or when it will strike, though the ambiguity is only stoking fears that Israel’s war with Iran-backed Hamas in the Gaza Strip could become a wider regional conflict, CBS noted.
On Thursday, the US State Department warned Americans in Israel not to travel outside major cities, which are better protected by the Iron Dome missile defense system.
“Whoever harms us, we will harm them,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted Thursday during a visit with troops at an IDF airbase.
“We are prepared … both defensively and offensively,” the 74-year-old boasted.
But Sima Shine, a security expert and former Mossad official, told CBS that the latest scenario is the “most worried” she had been for several months.
Anxiety over a regional war is probably high “on both sides, Israel and in Iran,” she added.
“They will try to do it on the military or some military asset,” Shine said of Iran’s potential targets on Israeli soil.
“But the question will be the damage. If there would be many injured people, killed or injured … I think it has the potential for a huge escalation,” she warned.
Shine also emphasized that she does not believe that either side truly wants a regional conflict.
The real test for Iran, she said, could be trying to deliver a payback attack in Syria in a way that would not further complicate the region.
Israel, Shine said, could also opt for restraint when its responds to whatever Iran has planned.
US officials are “really trying to avoid war,” Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Jr. told CBS on Friday morning.
“This is part of the dialogue that I have with my counterparts within the region, to include the Israeli chief of defense, who I talked to yesterday,” he said of the US’ efforts to contain the situation.
American forces, he added, were “doing things not only to prevent a war, but at the same time, one of my primary things is to make sure all the forces in the region are protected.”
