Israel-Iran ceasefire now in effect, says Trump after 12 Days of hostilities
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday a ceasefire between Israel and Iran was now in place and asked both sides not to violate it, raising hopes of an end to the 12-day war even as deadly attacks were reported in both countries.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had agreed to Trump’s ceasefire proposal, declaring that Israel had achieved its goal of removing Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile threat, but warning that it would respond forcefully to any violations, his office said.
His announcement came after Iran had launched a fresh wave of missiles, killing four people, according to Israel’s ambulance service, and as Iranian authorities reported nine people killed in an attack in northern Iran on Tuesday morning.
When Trump announced on Monday what he called a complete ceasefire to end the war, he appeared to suggest that Israel and Iran would have time to complete missions that were underway, at which point the ceasefire would begin in a staged process.
His declaration came after a sharp escalation of the conflict since Sunday, when the United States bombed Iranian nuclear sites, prompting Iran to retaliate by firing missiles at a U.S. base in Qatar on Monday.
Early on Tuesday, witnesses said they heard explosions near Tel Aviv and Beersheba in southern Israel. Iran’s semi-official SNN news agency reported that Tehran fired its last round of missiles before the ceasefire came into effect.
Israel’s military said six waves of missiles were launched by Iran and Israel’s national ambulance service said four people were killed in Beersheba.
In Iran, the deputy governor of the northern province of Gilan said four residential units were entirely destroyed in a “terrorist attack” on Tuesday morning, killing nine people and injuring 33, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.
It was not immediately clear if the official was referring to an Israeli strike, but Iran’s Nournews reported the killing of nuclear scientist Mohammadreza Sediqi in the attack, saying he was killed in an Israeli strike prior to the ceasefire’s implementation.
A senior White House official said Trump had brokered the ceasefire deal in a call with Netanyahu and Israel had agreed so long as Iran did not launch further attacks.
“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 wrote on his Truth Social site.
An Iranian official earlier confirmed that Tehran had agreed to a ceasefire, but the country’s foreign minister said there would be no cessation of hostilities unless Israel stopped its attacks.
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
A list of big unanswered questions remains, not least whether any ceasefire can actually hold between two bitter foes whose years-long “shadow” conflict had erupted into an air war marked by the past 12 days of strikes on each other’s territory.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said early on Tuesday that if Israel stopped its “illegal aggression” against the Iranian people no later than 4 a.m. Tehran time (0030 GMT) on Tuesday, Iran had no intention of continuing its response afterwards.
“The final decision on the cessation of our military operations will be made later,” Araqchi added in a post on X.
Israel, joined by the United States at the weekend, has carried out attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities after alleging Tehran was getting close to obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Iran denies ever having a nuclear weapons program but Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has said that if it wanted to, world leaders “wouldn’t be able to stop us”.
Source: Reuters
