Tensions in Israel continued to rise over possible missile strikes from Iran, as signals increased that President Donald Trump is ready to order a strike on the Islamic Republic, possibly within days.

Yet experts told Jewish Insider on Thursday that, despite the constant flow of reports that Trump favors a military response as negotiations with Iran falter, an American strike and Iranian retaliation against Israel are likely not imminent.

Nearly every major Israeli news website and broadcast led with Iran news on Wednesday evening and Thursday morning, referencing reports in CBS News that the U.S. military could be prepared to strike in the coming days and and the Wall Street Journal headline that the U.S. has amassed the greatest air power in the Middle East since the Iraq war in 2003.

In a moment that went viral in Israel and sparked hundreds of phone calls to the IDF Home Front Command, former IDF intelligence chief Amos Yadlin told Israel’s Channel 12 on Wednesday that while he went to the Munich Security Conference last week, “I would think twice about flying [abroad] on the coming weekend.”

Every Israeli “asks himself several times a day when there will be a campaign against Iran,” Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Boaz Bismuth (Likud) said on Wednesday. “The entire population and homefront are preparing.”

However, IDF Spokesperson Effie Defrin said that “there is no change in the situational assessment, and if there will be, we will update [the public]. There is no need to panic.”

Defrin also noted that “there are negotiations, and the IDF has long been prepared for maximum defense. If we are attacked, we will respond forcefully.”

However, while Israel’s leadership and the IDF’s assessment is that the U.S. will warn them before a strike, they plan to prepare quietly and not alert the public in advance, in order to increase the chances of success, Israel’s Kann News reported on Wednesday. 

Raz Zimmt, director of the Iran Program at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, quipped to JI in reference to Yadlin’s remarks: “Don’t change your weekend plans.” 

Zimmt noted that the USS Gerald Ford aircraft carrier is still on the way to the region, and argued that “the Americans will want to be maximally prepared when they make their decision” whether to strike Iran.

“I think it’s a matter of days, not weeks, but it could also be 14 days,” he said.

Oded Ailam, former head of the Mossad Counterterrorism Division and a researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, said that he “doesn’t see a scenario of an immediate strike in the coming days or the coming week, despite the fearmongering in the media.”

Ailam argued that Trump will try to exhaust the current negotiations to be certain if Iran will accept a deal. 

“He won’t attack until it is totally clear that this is a dead end, but he will gather forces” in the region, Ailam said. “It won’t happen for the next week or two, and after that, it depends mostly on the Iranians and the extent of their concessions.”

In Zimmt’s assessment, an Iranian surprise attack, rather than a retaliation following an American strike, is unlikely.

“Iran understands the chance of an American attack is higher than the chance of an agreement, but why should they drag themselves into a war that they have a chance of avoiding?” he said.

In addition, he said, the Iranian leadership “knows very well that Israel is ready and won’t be surprised, so it’s not worth it.” 

Still, Zimmt said, Iran’s likely first reaction to an American strike will likely be to attack U.S. bases in the Gulf and Israeli targets: “For them, the U.S. and Israel are the same thing.” 

Ailam said that Israel has greatly improved its air defenses since the 12-day war with Iran last June. At the time, Israel intercepted 85% of the missiles coming from Iran, and Ailam said the interception rate would likely be higher next time. Israel’s Iron Beam laser-defense system has also become operative in the interim, adding a new element of defense against drones.

In addition, he noted that the amassing of American naval vessels in the region means that the U.S. will likely contribute more to Israel’s defense than during the last war.

At the same time, Ailam said, “the Iranians have not managed to rebuild their ballistic missile systems. They only have 240 launchers, which is not much. When you strike launchers, you neutralize their ability to shoot many missiles simultaneously and disrupt Israel’s defense systems.” 

As such, Ailam’s assessment was that “Iran is on the defensive and Israel has a clear advantage.” 

“If two ballistic missiles penetrate Israel’s defensive envelope, it can cause great damage — as it did at Soroka [Medical Center in Beersheba] and Weizmann [Institute of Science] last year — but it is not a threat that Israel can’t handle. I don’t see it as an existential or very significant threat,” he said.