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JON GAMBRELL, DAVID RISING and MELANIE LIDMAN Associated Press
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump said a ceasefire between Iran and Israel was in effect Tuesday after the deal initially faltered, and the American leader expressed deep frustration with both sides.
Israel had earlier accused Iran of launching missiles into its airspace after the truce was supposed to take effect, and the Israeli finance minister vowed that “Tehran will tremble.”
The Iranian military denied firing on Israel, state media reported, but explosions boomed and sirens sounded across northern Israel in the morning, and an Israeli military official said two Iranian missiles were intercepted.
Trump told reporters at the White House before departing for a NATO summit that, in his view, both sides had violated the nascent agreement. He had particularly strong words for Israel, a close ally, while suggesting Iran may have fired on the country by mistake.
But later he said the deal was saved.
“ISRAEL is not going to attack Iran. 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 his Truth Social post.
Indeed, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he held off on tougher strike against Iran after speaking to Trump.
The conflict, now in its 12th day, began with Israel targeting Iranian nuclear and military sites, saying it could not allow Tehran to develop atomic weapons and that it feared the Islamic Republic was close. Iran has long maintained that its program is peaceful.
Many worried the war might widen after the U.S. joined the attacks by dropping bunker-buster bombs over the weekend and Israel expanded the kinds of targets it was hitting.
But after Tehran launched a limited retaliatory strike on a U.S. military base in Qatar on Monday, Trump announced the ceasefire.
Israel accuses Iran of violating the truce. Iran denies that
The deal got off to a rocky start.
An Israeli military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity in line with military regulations said Iran launched two missiles at Israel hours into the tenuous ceasefire. Both were intercepted, the official said.
Iranian state television reported that the military denied firing missiles after the start of the ceasefire — while condemning Israel for predawn strikes of its own.
One of those attacks killed a high-profile nuclear scientist, Mohammad Reza Sedighi Saber, at his father-in-law’s residence in northern Iran, Iranian state TV reported.
As Trump spoke to reporters at the White House before departing for the NATO summit, he expressed disappointment with both sides.
Iran “violated it, but Israel violated it too,” Trump said. “I’m not happy with Israel.”
Trump’s frustration was palpable, using an expletive to hammer home his point.
“We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f—- they’re doing,” he said.
Later, however, he announced that Israel had backed off its threat to attack Tehran and would turn its jets around.
Netanyahu’s office said Israel struck an Iranian radar site in response to the Iranian missile attack early Tuesday, but Israeli forces held off on something bigger.
Following Trump’s conversation with Netanyahu, “Israel refrained from additional attacks,” Netanyahu’s office said.
Breakthrough announced after hostilities spread
Netanyahu said Israel agreed to a bilateral ceasefire with Iran, in coordination with Trump, after the country achieved all of its war goals, including removing the threat of Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
It’s unclear what role Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s leader, played in the talks. He said earlier on social media that he would not surrender.
Trump said Tuesday that he wasn’t seeking regime change in Iran, two days after floating the idea himself in a social media post.
“I don’t want it,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One. “Regime change takes chaos and, ideally, we don’t want to see much chaos.”
Before the ceasefire was announced, Israel’s military said Iran launched 20 missiles toward Israel. Police said they damaged at least three densely packed residential buildings in the city of Beersheba. First responders said they retrieved four bodies from one building and were searching for more. At least 20 people were injured.
Outside, the shells of burned out cars littered the streets. Broken glass and rubble covered the area. Police said some people were injured while inside their apartments’ reinforced safe rooms, which are meant to withstand rockets but not direct hits from ballistic missiles.
The attack followed a limited Iranian missile attack Monday on a U.S. military base in Qatar, retaliating for earlier American bombing of its nuclear sites. The U.S. was warned by Iran in advance, and there were no casualties.
Drones attacked military bases in Iraq overnight, including some housing U.S. troops, the Iraqi army and a U.S. military official said Tuesday.
A senior U.S. military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly, said U.S. forces shot down drones attacking Ain al-Assad in the desert in western Iraq and at a base next to the Baghdad airport, while another one crashed.
No casualties were reported, and no group claimed responsibility for the attacks in Iraq. Some Iran-backed Iraqi militias had previously threatened to target U.S. bases if the U.S. attacked Iran.
Conflict has killed hundreds
In Israel, at least 28 people have been killed and more than 1,000 wounded in the war. Israeli strikes on Iran have killed at least 974 people and wounded 3,458 others, according to the Washington-based group Human Rights Activists.
The group, which has provided detailed casualty figures from Iranian unrest, said of those killed, it identified 387 civilians and 268 security force personnel.
The U.S. has evacuated some 250 American citizens and their immediate family members from Israel by government, military and charter flights that began over the weekend, a State Department official said.
There are roughly 700,000 American citizens, most of them dual U.S.-Israeli citizens, believed to be in Israel.
Lidman reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writers Gabe Levin in Dubai, Josef Federman in Jerusalem, Sam Mednick in Beersheba, Israel, Amir Vahdat in Iran, Darlene Superville in Washington and Seung Min Kim in Noordwijkerhout, Netherlands, contributed to this report.
By AAMER MADHANI and CHRIS MEGERIAN Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Monday on social media that Israel and Iran have agreed to a “complete and total ceasefire” to be phased in over 24 hours.
The U.S. president said on Truth Social that the ceasefire would bring an “Official END” to the war, a major change in the hostilities that follows a U.S. strike over the weekend on three Iranian nuclear sites.
“On the assumption that everything works as it should, which it will, I would like to congratulate both Countries, Israel and Iran, on having the Stamina, Courage, and Intelligence to end, what should be called, ‘THE 12 DAY WAR,'” Trump posted.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump thanked Iran for giving the U.S. and allies “early notice” of Monday’s retaliatory missile strike aimed at a major U.S. military installation in the Gulf nation of Qatar.
The president expressed hope that Tehran — with its reprisal for the U.S. bombardment of three key Iranian nuclear facilities — had “gotten it all out of their ‘system'” and that the moment would lead to a de-escalation in the Israel-Iran war.
“I am pleased to report that NO Americans were harmed, and hardly any damage was done,” Trump said on social media. “I want to thank Iran for giving us early notice, which made it possible for no lives to be lost, and nobody to be injured. Perhaps Iran can now proceed to Peace and Harmony in the Region, and I will enthusiastically encourage Israel to do the same.”
The Iranian attack on U.S. forces at Qatar’s Al Udeid Air Base marked Tehran’s first act of direct retaliation against the U.S. since Trump ordered strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Leon Panetta, who served as CIA director and defense secretary under former President Barack Obama, said Iran’s restrained response suggests that “their ability to respond has probably been damaged pretty badly.” He also said it’s a potential signal “they’re not interested in escalating the war, either with Israel or the United States.”
Trump said Iran launched 14 missiles at the base, a sprawling facility that hosts the forward headquarters of the U.S. military’s Central Command and was a major staging ground during the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The base houses some 8,000 U.S. troops, down from about 10,000 at the height of those wars.
The president said 13 of the Iranian missiles “were knocked down,” by U.S. air defense systems while one was “‘set free’ because it was headed in a nonthreatening direction.”
Hours before Iran launched its attack on Monday, the U.S. Embassy in Qatar issued an alert on its website urging American citizens in the energy-rich nation to “shelter in place until further notice.” The Qatari government issued an extraordinary order to shut its busy airspace.
The attack came as global markets were trying to ascertain what lays ahead after the U.S. struck key Iranian nuclear facilities over the weekend with a barrage of 30,000-pound bunker busting bombs and Tomahawk missiles.
Iran’s parliament has approved cutting off the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow shipping lane in the Persian Gulf that about 20% of global oil and gas passes through. It’s now up to Iran’s national security council to decide whether to move forward with the idea, which could lead to a spike in the cost of goods and services worldwide.
So, far the markets appear to be a responding with a relative measure of calm. By Monday afternoon, oil prices were nearly back to where they were before the fighting began over a week ago.
Trump earlier Monday called on the U.S. and allied oil producing nations to pump more oil and “KEEP OIL PRICES DOWN.”
Many energy industry analysts are skeptical that Iran would go forward with a full closure of the strait, something that it has threatened to do in the past.
Iran would face the possibility of retaliation against its own shipments and the possibility that the move would upset China, the biggest purchaser of Iranian crude.
The U.S. and allies pressed Russia in the leadup to Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine with threats to its oil industry, and then followed through as many Western oil companies pulled out of the country and the U.S. and Europe imposed sanctions on Russian industry.
But Iran is far less integrated into the global economy than Russia, which was reliant on European markets for its oil and gas exports and still went forward with the invasion despite U.S. warnings.
Colby Connelly, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, cautioned that “if the 2020s have taught us anything so far, it’s that economic ties don’t always prevent conflict.”
As for Iran’s future, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday appeared to play down Trump calling into question the future of Iran’s ruling theocracy, seemingly contradicting his administration’s earlier calls on Tehran to resume negotiations and avoid an escalation in fighting.
“It’s not politically correct to use the term, ‘Regime Change,’ but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change???” Trump posted on social media. “MIGA!!!”
Leavitt said Trump’s “posture and our military posture has not changed.”
“The president was just simply raising a question that I think many people around the world are asking,” Leavitt said.
Associated Press writers Stan Choe in New York, Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Josh Boak, Matthew Lee and Eric Tucker in Washington contributed reporting.
