After Faltering Initially… Iran, Israel enter shaky ceasefire

Hans India

4 hours ago

Washington/Dubai: US President Donald Trump said a ceasefire between Iran and Israel was in effect on 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 strikes 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 US 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 US military base in Qatar on Monday, Trump announced the ceasefire.
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.
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.'