Washington:
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Iran has “now come into effect”. The American leader also warned the two arch enemies in the Middle East not to violate the truce deal after Iran fired several waves of missiles at Israeli territories in the last few hours.
“THE CEASEFIRE IS NOW IN EFFECT. PLEASE DO NOT VIOLATE IT,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform.
The US leader had earlier called a complete ceasefire to end a 12-day war and said the truce would be a phased 24-hour process beginning at around 0400 GMT Tuesday, with Iran unilaterally halting all operations first. He said Israel would follow suit 12 hours later.
Iranian state-run media also said that the ceasefire with Israel came into effect following five waves of missile attacks on Israeli-occupied territories, which killed at least seven people in the south. But moments before the truce deal came into effect, Iran’s semi-official SNN news agency reported that Tehran fired its last round of missiles.
As the barrage of missiles ended, Israel’s military said the public could leave areas near shelters.
“Following a situational assessment, the Home Front Command has announced that the requirement to remain near protected spaces throughout the country has been lifted,” the military said in a statement.
Trump’s Ceasefire Announcement
Trump announced the truce between Israel and Iran just hours after Tehran launched strikes against an American military base in Qatar, which the Republican leader described as “weak” retaliation for US strikes over the weekend against Iranian nuclear sites.
A senior White House official told news agency Reuters that Trump had brokered a ceasefire deal in a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Israel had agreed so long as Iran did not launch further attacks.
Iran also 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.
Iran and Israel have exchanged wave after wave of air strikes since Israel unleashed a major military offensive on June 13. Israel, joined by the United States on 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”.
