Israel will refrain from carrying out further strikes in Iran despite Tehran’s violation of the ceasefire deal, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said following a phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday.
During the conversation, Trump “conveyed his deep appreciation for Israel, which he said had accomplished all of the war’s objectives,” the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem stated, adding that Trump had “also expressed confidence in the stability of the ceasefire.”
Netanyahu’s office noted that while the ceasefire was supposed to come into effect at 7 a.m. local time, at 7:06 a.m., Tehran launched a missile toward Israeli territory, followed by two more missiles at 10:25 a.m.
In addition, shortly before the truce took effect, the Islamic Republic fired a barrage of missiles, one of which directly hit Beersheva and claimed the lives of four civilians, the Prime Minister’s Office said.
“In response to these violations, the Israel Air Force destroyed a radar installation near Tehran,” the PMO stated, confirming Hebrew media reports that the military was considering attacking a “symbolic target.”
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir had vowed that the military would “respond with force” to the Islamic Republic’s violations of the ceasefire.
However, Trump, following the phone call with Netanyahu, announced that Jerusalem would not be conducting any major retaliatory attack and that the ceasefire he brokered remained in effect.
“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!” wrote the president on his Truth Social platform.
Earlier, Trump had warned in a post: “Israel. Do not drop those bombs. If you do it is a major violation. Bring your pilots home, now! Donald J. Trump, president of the United States.”
Speaking with reporters before leaving for the NATO summit in The Hague, Trump had exclaimed that Israel and Iran “don’t know what the f*** they’re doing.”
“Israel, as soon as we made the deal, they came out and they dropped a load of bombs, the likes of which I’d never seen before, the biggest load that we’ve seen. I’m not happy with Israel,” the president claimed.
“You know when I say, OK, now you have 12 hours. You don’t go out in the first hour, just drop everything you have on them. So, I’m not happy with them,” he said of the window Jerusalem was given to stop striking.
“I’m not happy with Iran either. But I’m really unhappy if Israel is going out this morning because of one rocket that didn’t land, that was shot, perhaps by mistake, that didn’t land,” Trump added.
Since Jerusalem launched Operation Rising Lion early on June 13 against the Iranian regime’s nuclear and missile arsenals, the Islamic Republic has fired nearly 1,000 missiles and drones at Israeli civilians in major population centers—killing 28, wounding dozens and displacing thousands more and causing widespread property damage.
Trump on Tuesday vowed that the Islamic regime “will never rebuild their nuclear facilities” following the Israeli and U.S. military action.
