Israel’s Beersheba (AP) A provisional ceasefire was thrown into disarray Tuesday as Israel threatened to strike back after claiming Iran had fired missiles into its airspace more than two hours after the ceasefire was set to go into effect.
Iran’s military denied firing on Israel, according to state media, but in the middle of the morning, sirens and explosions rang out throughout northern Israel. Israel and Iran had already agreed to a truce arrangement to terminate their 12-day conflict.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz referred to the rockets as a breach of the truce and gave the Israeli military the order to return to its aggressive bombing of Tehran and the destruction of terror infrastructure and regime targets.
After Tehran launched a limited retaliatory missile attack on a U.S. military station in Qatar on Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump announced the tentative accord early Tuesday morning.
Israel unleashed a barrage of airstrikes hitting locations throughout Iran before daybreak between Trump’s post and the ceasefire’s start. Iran responded with a barrage of missiles, killing at least four Israelis.
Hours into the shaky ceasefire, Iran fired two missiles at Israel, according to an Israeli military official who spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with military norms. According to the official, both rockets were intercepted.
After the missiles were launched, Israeli Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich posted on X that Tehran will tremble.
Netanyahu accepts ceasefire as Iranian state TV says fighting has stopped
The missile barrage in the middle of the morning followed the applause of Trump’s truce statement by regional leaders, including those in Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
NOW THE CEASEFIRE IS ACTIVE. DO NOT VIOLATE IT, PLEASE! The President of the United States, Donald J. Trump! On Tuesday morning, he posted on his social media accounts.
In collaboration with Trump, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel has reached a bilateral ceasefire agreement with Iran, promising to retaliate for any future violations. He claimed to have informed Israel’s security cabinet that the nation had accomplished all of its war objectives, including eliminating the threat posed by Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear programs. According to Netanyahu, Israel also took control of Tehran’s skies and destroyed Iran’s military leadership and a number of government buildings.
Neither Trump’s announcement of the truce nor Israel’s assertion that it had intercepted further missiles hours after it was due to go into effect prompted Iranian authorities to remark. Iran’s top ambassador had stated hours earlier that the nation was ready to stop attacks.
In a post on X, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated that there is currently no agreement on a ceasefire or a halt to military activities. We do not, however, intend to continue our retaliation after the Israeli dictatorship ceases its unlawful aggression against the Iranian people by 4 a.m. Tehran time.
The ultimate choice about the end of our military activities will be decided later, Araghchi continued.
Iranian missiles kill 4 in Israel as hostilities expand
A day of fighting that stretched over the region was followed by the fragile ceasefire.
In retaliation for prior American bombardment of its nuclear sites, Iran launched a limited missile attack on a U.S. military station in Qatar on Monday. There were no injuries, and Iran had alerted the U.S. beforehand. According to Israel’s military, Iran fired 20 missiles against Israel prior to Tuesday morning’s truce. At least three crowded residential structures in the city of Beersheba were damaged, according to the police.
According to first responders, they were looking for more victims after recovering four from one building. Prior to lowering the number, the Fire and Rescue agency said that five bodies had been discovered.
Twenty or more persons were hurt.
The streets outside were littered with the shells of burned-out automobiles. The area was covered in rubble and broken glass. To find out if there were any more people trapped in the buildings, hundreds of emergency personnel gathered.
According to the police, some people were hurt even within their apartments’ reinforced safe rooms, which are designed to withstand shrapnel and rockets but not direct ballistic missile strikes.
Bases hit in Iraq
The Iraqi army and a US military official claimed Tuesday that drones had assaulted military outposts in Iraq overnight, including several that housed American personnel.
No group claimed responsibility for the strikes in Iraq, and no injuries were reported. In the past, certain Iraqi militias supported by Iran had threatened to attack American bases in the event that the United States invaded Iran.
In a statement, Iraqi army spokesperson Sabah Al-Naaman described the assaults as a cowardly and malicious act of aggression, claiming that they had damaged radar equipment at Imam Ali Base in Dhi Qar region and Camp Taji, north of Baghdad. He said that drones were shot down by Iraqi soldiers in various sites.
United States forces shot down drones attacking Ain al-Assad in the western Iraqi desert and at a facility near the Baghdad airport, while another drone crashed, according to a senior U.S. military official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly.
Trump says ceasefire is in effect
Ahead of Israel’s pledge to restart operations on Tuesday, Trump said yesterday night that a ceasefire would formally conclude what he then called the 12 Day War.
According to a senior White House official who requested anonymity to disclose the Monday discussions, Trump had spoken with Netanyahu directly to negotiate the ceasefire. Through direct and indirect channels, Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and special envoy Steve Witkoff interacted with the Iranians.
The White House has insisted that the Qatari government acted as a mediator in the ceasefire agreement and that the bombing on Saturday helped persuade the Israelis to accept it.
What part Iran’s leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, played in the negotiations is unknown. He had declared on social media that he would not give up.
Attacks force temporary closure of Israel s skies
According to Israel’s Airports Authority, the country’s airspace was closed to emergency aircraft for several hours due to Iran’s bombardment.
Israeli media reported that some flights were forced to loop over the Mediterranean Sea.
Since the start of the conflict with Iran, Israel’s airports have been closed, but in recent days, a few emergency planes have begun to arrive and depart.
After Qatar closed its airspace due to the Iranian strike on Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar Airways started operating again early on Tuesday. Commercial planes were once again operating in Qatari airspace, according to flight-tracking data, indicating that Doha thought the threat to the energy-rich country had passed.
Conflict has killed hundreds
The war in Israel has resulted in at least 28 fatalities and over 1,000 injuries. The Washington-based organization Human Rights Activists reports that Israeli strikes on Iran have resulted in at least 974 fatalities and 3,458 injuries.
According to the group, which has supplied precise death tolls from Iranian turmoil, including the demonstrations that followed Mahsa Amini’s death in 2022, 387 civilians and 268 members of the security forces were among the dead.
According to a State Department official, the United States has started evacuating about 250 American citizens and their immediate family members from Israel by government, military, and charter flights over the weekend.
The majority of the approximately 700,000 American citizens who are thought to be in Israel are dual U.S.-Israeli citizens.
___
By Melanie Lidman, Jon Gambrell, and Sam Mednick
