ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE/TEL AVIV/ISTANBUL: Israel bombed a target near Tehran on Tuesday despite a furious rebuke from US President Donald Trump for launching airstrikes hours after agreeing to a ceasefire deal with Iran.
Trump scolded both Iran and Israel for early violations of the truce that he had announced at around 0500 GMT, but directed particularly stinging criticism at Washington’s close ally over the scale of its strikes, telling it to “calm down now”. He said Israel called off further attacks at his command to preserve the deal to end a 12-day air war with Iran. Following those remarks, however, two witnesses reached by telephone in the Iranian capital said they heard two loud blasts. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office acknowledged that Israel had bombed a radar site near Tehran in what it said was retaliation for Iranian missiles fired three-and-a-half hours after the ceasefire had been due to begin.
It said Israel had decided to refrain from further attacks following a call between Netanyahu and Trump, but did not explicitly say whether the strike on the radar site took place before or after they spoke. The Islamic Republic denied launching any missiles and said Israel’s attacks had continued for an hour-and-a-half beyond the time the truce was meant to start.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said later Tehran would not violate the ceasefire unless Israel did so, and that it was prepared to return to the negotiating table, without elaborating, according to state-run Nournews. Whether the truce can hold is a major question. Signaling a difficult path ahead, it took hours for Israel and Iran to even acknowledge that they had accepted the ceasefire that Trump said he had brokered. Still, oil prices fell and share markets rose worldwide at the prospect of an end to the conflict, lifting a threat of disruption to oil supplies from the Gulf to the wider world.
Trump, en route to a NATO summit in Europe, had admonished Israel with an obscenity in an extraordinary outburst at an ally whose air war he had joined two days before by dropping massive bunker-buster bombs on Iran’s underground nuclear sites. “All planes will turn around and head home, while doing a friendly ‘Plane Wave’ to Iran. Nobody will be hurt, the Ceasefire is in effect!” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. That followed a post in which he had said: “Israel. Do not drop those bombs. If you do it it is a major violation. Bring your pilots home, now!”
Before departing the White House, Trump told reporters he was unhappy with both sides for breaching the ceasefire, but particularly frustrated with Israel, which he said had “unloaded” shortly after agreeing to the deal. “I’ve got to get Israel to calm down now,” Trump said. Iran and Israel had been fighting “so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f... they’re doing.” A reporter for Axios said Netanyahu had told Trump that Israel would scale back the bombing mission rather than cancel it.
Speaking to reporters on board Air Force One heading to the NATO summit, Trump said he did not want to see Iran’s ruling system toppled. “I don’t want it. I’d like to see everything calm down as quickly as possible. You know, the Iranians are very good traders, very good businesspeople, and they’ve got a lot of oil. They should be fine. They should be able to rebuild and do a good job. They’re never going to have nuclear but other than that, they should do a great job.”
In the hours before the truce took effect, four people -- one of them an off-duty Israeli soldier -- were killed by Iranian missiles that hit a residential building in Beersheba in southern Israel, according to the Israeli ambulance service. Iranian officials said nine people were killed by a strike on a residential building in northern Iran. Earlier, Katz had said he had ordered the military to mount major strikes on targets in Tehran in response to what he said were Iranian missiles fired in a “blatant violation” of the ceasefire. Despite the initial reports of violations, in both countries there was a palpable sense of relief that a path out of war had been charted.
Israeli armed forces chief of staff Eyal Zamir said the military was at “the conclusion of a significant chapter but the campaign against Iran is not over”, though he added the military was refocusing on its war against Hamas in Gaza.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz also told US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth Israel will respect the ceasefire with Iran “as long as the other side does.” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said he also thanked Hegseth for President Donald Trump’s decision to “act with Israel” against Iran’s nuclear programme, which he described as a threat.
A senior White House official said Trump brokered the ceasefire deal with Netanyahu, and other administration officials were in touch with the Iranians. Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani secured Tehran’s agreement during a call with Iranian officials at Washington’s request after the strikes on Doha. Trump told Qatar’s emir that Israel had agreed to a ceasefire, before US Vice President JD Vance spoke to the prime minister “who persuaded Iran to agree to the proposal in a call with the Iranians”, the source said.
Ali Vaez, senior advisor at the International Crisis Group, said the “good relationship between Iran and Qatar is the reason that Iran opted to strike... the Al Udeid base in Qatar”. Before the attack, there had been speculation that Iran could target US forces based in Iraq or elsewhere in the region. “I see this as a continuation of Qatar’s mediation between Iran and the United States, that it has taken this punch as a means of trying to prevent further escalation,” Vaez added. Quilliam said: “While Qatar’s official responses to the attacks condemned Iran, it also pushed forward a deeper message about ending conflict in the region.” No one was hurt in that strike as the Iranian retaliation appeared to have been calibrated carefully to allow de-escalation. Trump thanked Tehran for warning the United States in advance to avoid injuries.
Qatar’s prime minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani told a press conference with his Lebanese counterpart in Doha that the country had brokered a ceasefire with Iran amid the ongoing war with Israel at the request of the United States to play a role as a liaison. “We hope the ceasefire will continue as agreed upon, and we urge both the US and Iran to return to the negotiating table with the aim of reaching a comprehensive diplomatic solution, something that Qatar has consistently sought,” he said.
Thani also said that relations with Iran were scarred by an Iranian missile volley at the US airbase, but added that he hoped ties would eventually “come back to normal”.
The prime minister described the attack as “unacceptable” but said Qatar’s response would be “diplomatic and legal”. He added that Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian expressed regret in a phone call with Qatar’s ruling Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani that Tehran’s target in retaliating for US airstrikes was a military base in Qatar. “The partnership between Qatar and the US is just growing stronger … and I hope the good relationship with Iran comes back to normal as soon as possible,” he said. Sheikh Mohammed also urged Washington and Tehran to resume Oman-mediated talks on Iran’s nuclear programme that were frozen when Israel began striking Iran. He said that Qatar, a key mediator between Israel and Hamas, was working on resuming talks for a fresh ceasefire in the Gaza conflict.
Meanwhile, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Tehran was ready to resolve issues with the US based on international frameworks, in comments in a phone call with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Iran’s official news agency IRNA reported on Tuesday. The call comes a day after US President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire deal between Israel and Iran. He also hailed a “great victory” in a war he said Iran had successful ended, according to Iranian media.
Earlier, Iran’s president told his counterpart from the United Arab Emirates that his country was not seeking nuclear weapons but would continue to defend its “legitimate rights” in the peaceful use of nuclear energy. Pezeshkian said that the two countries “cannot impose unjust aspirations by force”. “We expect you to explain to them, in your dealings with the United States, that the Islamic Republic of Iran is only seeking to assert its legitimate rights,” Pezeshkian said during a call with UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed. “It has never sought to acquire nuclear weapons and does not seek them,” he was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency, adding that Iran was “ready to resolve the issues... at the negotiating table”.
In another development Trump said that China can continue to purchase oil from Iran and hoped that China would also buy “plenty” of it from the United States. “China can now continue to purchase Oil from Iran. Hopefully, they will be purchasing plenty from the US, also,” he said in a post on Truth Social.
Saudi Arabia and the European Union welcomed Trump’s announcement, while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia hoped “that this will be a sustainable ceasefire”. But French President Emmanuel Macron warned there was an “increased” risk that Iran would attempt to enrich uranium secretly following the strikes on its nuclear sites.
In its reaction, Pakistan welcomed the announcement of the ceasefire understanding between Iran and Israel, and called on the relevant parties to uphold the ceasefire. “We also welcome and support the efforts aimed at reviving dialogue and diplomacy in the region. Pakistan believes that peace and stability in the region can only be achieved through strict adherence to the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and by refraining from the use of force. Pakistan will continue to support all efforts in this regard.”
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres urged Iran and Israel to respect the ceasefire that went into effect Tuesday after 12 days of war. “The fighting must stop. The people of the two countries have already suffered too much,” Guterres said on X, adding that he hoped the truce could be replicated in other conflicts in the region, such as the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told parliament “the moment has come” for a ceasefire in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. Germany reserves the right to “critically question what Israel wants to achieve in the Gaza Strip.” He also said that Germany “will not consider suspending or terminating” the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which has been under review by the EU as it looks to pressure Israel into allowing more aid into Gaza. However, Merz also called on Israel to ensure “humane treatment of the people in the Gaza Strip, especially women, children and the elderly.”