Tehran and Tel Aviv have paused their latest round of direct military exchanges, though both sides have cautioned that the pause is fragile and further attacks could trigger deadlier reprisals.
The cross-border hostilities, which marked the first direct confrontation between the two nations since a ceasefire in April, erupted over the weekend and continued into Monday morning.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that his forces were holding fire “at the moment”. However, he cautioned that the broader confrontation with Tehran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah was “not finished”.
Hours earlier, Iran’s armed forces announced they had halted operations after delivering what they called a “painful response” to Israeli actions. Tehran warned that any fresh Israeli strikes – including those targeting Lebanon, where Israeli troops are engaged with Hezbollah – would be met with “more severe and crushing measures”.
US President Donald Trump told the BBC that Netanyahu had not acted against his wishes by launching strikes, saying, “No, no. They had already gone. They were already on their way.”
The White House confirmed that Trump had spoken with the Israeli prime minister to address the crisis. An Israeli official later said that Tel Aviv had ceased its strikes at the US president’s request.
When asked how he had convinced Netanyahu to stop attacking Iran, Trump replied, “All I did is say, ‘We have to use sense’. We’re very close to signing a very powerful deal, a very good deal. No nuclear weapons, no nothing. You know, we have to use a lot of common sense. It was fine.”
Trump also asserted, “If I tell him to do something, he does it.”
In a separate interview with US news outlet Axios, the president said he had warned Netanyahu that Israel might find itself fighting alone if it resumed full-scale war with Iran.
“I said, ‘Bibi, you better be careful, or you will be on your own very soon,'” Axios quoted him as saying.
Netanyahu, however, struck a defiant tone in a televised address on Monday, stating that he had reminded Trump that “Israel has a full right to self-defence, and we are exercising it as required”.
Israeli authorities reported that Iran launched additional missiles towards Jerusalem and central and southern Israel on Monday morning. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said a second wave of air strikes targeted a petrochemical complex in the south-western Iranian city of Mahshahr. An Israeli military official alleged that the facility produced chemicals used in ballistic missile manufacturing.
Iran’s Emergency Organisation chief, Jafar Miadfar, told Tasnim news agency that 14 people were injured in Mahshahr and one in Tehran.
Casualties were also reported in Lebanon. The Lebanese health ministry said five people were killed and eight wounded in an Israeli strike on the southern city of Tyre on Monday. The Red Cross said four of its rescue workers were among the injured.
Hezbollah, meanwhile, claimed responsibility for firing a barrage of rockets at a group of Israeli army vehicles and soldiers in southern Lebanon on Monday morning.
Trump publicly urged both nations to “immediately stop ‘shooting'”, warning that continued hostilities were undermining negotiations between Washington and Tehran on a broader regional peace deal.
“Israel and Iran… are looking to do an immediate CEASEFIRE! Final negotiations on ‘Peace’ are proceeding, subject to ignorance or stupidity getting in its way,” he wrote on TruthSocial.
The war traces back to 28 February, when Israel and the US launched a joint attack on Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several other senior officials. The conflict subsequently spread across the Middle East, with Iran launching missiles and drones at Israel and Gulf states hosting US military facilities.
Lebanon was drawn into the fighting on 2 March, when Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel in retaliation for Khamenei’s assassination. Israel responded with air strikes across Lebanon and a ground invasion of significant territory in the country’s south.
A US-brokered truce between Israel and Lebanon has failed to take hold, with Hezbollah rejecting the agreement and demanding a complete Israeli withdrawal.
Meanwhile, the US has been pressing Israel to scale back its military campaign to allow room for a wider deal with Iran, which has insisted that any agreement must also address the conflict in Lebanon.
According to Axios, the Israeli strikes went ahead despite Trump having told Netanyahu not to retaliate. The president was already frustrated, the report said, that his warnings against attacking Beirut had been ignored.
Earlier, Trump was quoted by the Financial Times as saying that the Israeli prime minister “won’t have any choice” but to accept any deal the US secures with Iran. “I call all the shots. He doesn’t call the shots,” he reportedly said.
Israeli Ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter struck a different tone on X, writing: “No self-respecting country in the world would tolerate such an attack, and neither will Israel.”
Iran’s top negotiator Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said on Telegram that “ceasefire violations and naval blockades” – an apparent reference to the US blockade of Iranian ports – had “been the cause of recent tensions”. He added: “We are not going to fight or negotiate, but we are going to fight on our own time and negotiate on our own time.”
According to Iran’s Martyrs Foundation, at least 3,468 people have been killed in the country during the war. The Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) has put the figure at 3,636, including 1,701 civilians.
Lebanon’s health ministry says 3,613 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on Lebanese territory, without distinguishing between combatants and civilians.
Israeli authorities report that 20 civilians have been killed inside Israel by Iranian missile attacks. Four Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank. On the Israel-Lebanon border, 30 Israeli soldiers and four civilians have been killed during fighting with Hezbollah.
Local authorities say 29 people have been killed in Iranian attacks on Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Thirteen US service members have been killed, seven of them in Iranian attacks in the Gulf.
