DUBAI: Multiple Explosions rang out in Tehran from Israeli airstrikes on Tuesday despite US President Donald Trump saying Israel had called off strikes at his command to preserve an hours-old ceasefire.
Two witnesses reached by telephone in the Iranian capital said they heard two loud explosions.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office acknowledged that Israel had struck a radar site near Tehran in what it said was retaliation for Iranian missiles fired three-and-a-half hours after the ceasefire had been due to begin.
It said Israel had decided to refrain from further attacks following a call between Netanyahu and Trump but did not explicitly say whether the strike on the radar site took place before or after they spoke.
Oil prices fell and share markets were lifted around the world at the prospect of an end to the biggest-ever confrontation between the Middle East foes, lifting a threat of disruption to Gulf oil supplies.
Trump, en route to a NATO summit in the Netherlands, had rebuked Israel with an obscenity in an extraordinary outburst at an ally whose military campaign he had joined two days earlier.
“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!” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
That followed a post in which he had said: “Israel. Do not drop those bombs. If you do it it is a major violation. Bring your pilots home, now!”
Before departing the White House, Trump told reporters he was unhappy with both sides for violating the ceasefire, but particularly unhappy with Israel, which he said had “unloaded” shortly after agreeing on the deal.
“I’ve got to get Israel to calm down now,” Trump said. Iran and Israel had been fighting “so long and so hard that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.”
Meanwhile, a media person for Axios said Netanyahu had told Trump that Israel would scale back the bombing mission rather than cancel it.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz had said earlier on Tuesday that he had ordered the military to mount major strikes on targets in Tehran in response to what he said were Iranian missiles fired in a “blatant violation” of the ceasefire.
Iran denied launching any missiles and said Israel’s attacks had continued for an hour-and-a-half beyond the time the ceasefire was meant to start.
Despite the initial reports of violations, in both countries there was a palpable sense of relief that a path out of war had been charted, 12 days after Israel launched it with a surprise attack, and two days after Trump joined in with strikes on Iranian nuclear targets.
Read more: Global Peace Index Flags Kashmir as Nuclear Flashpoint Amid Escalating Tensions
