Donald Trump has declared a ceasefire intended to bring an end to a 12-day war between Israel and Iran, but despite public acceptance of the truce, both sides continued to exchange fire on Tuesday morning.
Air raid sirens sounded in northern Israel at about 10.30am, in response to what the Israeli military said was an Iranian missile launch, about two and a half hours after the ceasefire was first announced. Israeli reports said two missiles had been intercepted. Iran denied launching missiles after the ceasefire but Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, said he had ordered immediate retaliation on Tehran.
“I have instructed the IDF to respond forcefully to Iran’s violation of the ceasefire with powerful strikes against regime targets in the heart of Tehran,” Katz said in a statement. “In light of Iran’s complete violation of the ceasefire declared by the US president and the launch of missiles towards Israel … I have instructed the IDF … to continue the intense activity of attacking Tehran to thwart regime targets and terrorist infrastructures in Tehran, in continuation of the activity that took place yesterday.”
Trump used social media to announce the ceasefire just after 5am BST on Tuesday, asking the warring parties not to violate it. Both sides carried out an intense exchange of fire before signalling their acceptance, but hours after the declaration, it remained unclear if the truce would stick.
The all clear was later sounded in the north of Israel but the country’s hardline finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, posted a message on the social media platform X vowing a response, warning: “Tehran will tremble.”
Iranian state media suggested the ceasefire had been “imposed on the enemy” after “four waves of attacks on Israeli-occupied territories”. Israeli authorities confirmed that Iran had fired 20 missiles, and that five Israelis had been killed and more than 22 wounded in the southern city of Beersheba.
Ninety minutes after Trump’s announcement, Israel – which began the war with a surprise attack on 13 June – also acknowledged the truce and claimed victory.
“In light of achieving the objectives of the operation, and in full coordination with President Trump, Israel has agreed to the president’s proposal for a bilateral ceasefire,” the Israeli government said in a statement, claiming it had achieved its objectives “and much more”, removing “a double existential threat – on both the nuclear issue and regarding ballistic missiles”.
In the hours before the declaration of a ceasefire, Israel carried out some of its most intense airstrikes on Tehran yet, residents said.
The Tasnim News Agency said nine Iranians had been killed in the north of the country, while Israel claimed to have struck missile launchers in western Iran and struck dozens of targets in Tehran in the early hours of Tuesday morning. The prime minister’s office claimed to have killed hundreds of militants in the Basij, a volunteer force used to suppress internal dissent, and targeted an Iranian nuclear scientist, bringing the toll of assassinations of Iranian scientists to at least 15.
Iranian state media named the scientist killed overnight as Mohammad Reza Seddighi Saber, saying he had been targeted at his parents’ residence in Astaneh-ye Ashrafiyeh in northern Iran. His 17-year-old son was reported to have been killed in a strike on the family home in Tehran several days ago, state television said.
After the Israeli government accepted the ceasefire, the opposition leader, Yair Lapid, said it was also time to end Israel’s war in Gaza.
“It’s time to finish it there too. Bring back the hostages, end the war. Israel needs to start rebuilding,” Lapid said on X. An estimated 56,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza over 20 months of Israeli bombardment.
The ceasefire announcement came after an Iranian missile launch against a US base in Qatar, in reprisal for American participation in strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities on Sunday. Iran said it had given advance warning of the missiles to Qatar and there were no reported injuries.
In an online post on Monday night, Trump thanked Iran for “giving us early notice” of the barrage at the Al Udeid in Qatar and said that no Americans had been killed or harmed in the attack. An earlier report of a missile attack on a US base in Iraq was a false alarm, the US military said.
In his Truth Social post, Trump said he hoped that the ceasefire would lead to an end of what he called the “12 Day War”.
“CONGRATULATIONS TO EVERYONE!” the president declared. “It has been fully agreed by and between Israel and Iran that there will be a Complete and Total CEASEFIRE.”
Hours earlier, Reuters reported that three Israeli officials had signalled Israel was looking to wrap up its strikes on Iran soon and had passed the message on to the US. On Sunday, Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was “very, very close to completing” its goals.
Trump’s initial ceasefire announcement appeared to suggest that Israel and Iran would have time to complete missions that were under way, at which point the ceasefire would begin in a staged process, but commentators continued to question the choreography of the agreement, even after it reportedly came into effect.
“Does Israel have 12 more hours to strike based on his first announcement? Or are they supposed to be in ceasefire now?” asked Daniel Shapiro, a former Pentagon official for Middle Eastern affairs and ex-ambassador to Israel.
An Iranian social media user in Tehran wrote that the Israeli strikes on the capital city were “intense” in the run-up to the announced ceasefire. “The bombardment tonight in Tehran was extremely intense. For a full hour the explosions wouldn’t stop. We are a completely defenseless people,” the user wrote.
The ceasefire announcement came after the US joined the Israel-led campaign by striking Iranian uranium enrichment facilities early on Sunday morning, prompting Iran on Monday to launch a choreographed retaliatory strike against a US airbase in Qatar. Trump had called the Iranian attack a “very weak response” and said he would renew efforts to negotiate a peace between Israel and Iran.
Trump’s post thanking Iran for giving advance notice of missile launches against US bases suggested that the Iranian response was carefully coordinated to allow Tehran and Washington an off-ramp after the US joined in Israeli strikes, aimed at Iranian uranium enrichment facilities in order to weaken Iran’s nuclear programme before the country could produce a bomb.
Trump advisers privately said they believed Iran would accept the US president’s olive branch in order to avoid continued strikes by Israel, and because they had inflicted symbolic retaliation.
The ceasefire announcement also appeared an effort to reframe the metrics for success for the US operation, after it was unclear whether the deeply buried Fordow nuclear site had been destroyed.
In a post on social media, Trump said the Iranian sites had been “totally destroyed”.
But the UN’s nuclear chief, Rafael Grossi, said: “At this time, no one, including the [International Atomic Energy Agency], is in a position to assess the underground damage at Fordow.”
Trump advisers tried to suggest it did not matter if Fordow was destroyed because Iran had been forced to the negotiating table – even though that would mark a departure from what Trump said he was aiming for over the weekend.
Still, the actual damage to the nuclear facilities remains an important question in advance of possible talks between US and Iran – expected to be led by Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff – as it would affect Witkoff’s negotiating leverage.
Other senior administration officials claimed victory. The vice-president, JD Vance, on Monday evening claimed Iran was “incapable of building a nuclear weapon with the equipment they have because we destroyed it”.
The US attack followed a wave of missile strikes between Israel and Iran, with Israel bombing the notorious Evin prison, and came after Trump raised the prospect of regime change in Tehran. But as of Monday evening, senior US officials had suggested that the Iranian attack on Qatar was designed to avoid a further escalation that could lead to an all-out war which could imperil the Iranian regime.
Trump said 13 of the 14 missiles fired by Iran had been shot down and that one was allowed to hit its target because it was “headed in a non-threatening direction”. In a statement posted on the X social platform while the missiles were in the air, Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said: “We neither initiated the war nor were we seeking it. But we will not leave aggression against the great Iran without answer.”
