ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE/TEL AVIV/ISTANBUL, June 24 (Reuters) - Israel bombed a target near Tehran on Tuesday despite a furious rebuke from U.S. President Donald Trump for launching airstrikes hours after agreeing to a
ceasefire deal with Iran.
Trump scolded both Iran and Israel for early violations of the truce that he had announced at around 0500 GMT, but directed particularly stinging criticism at Washington's close ally over the scale of its strikes, telling it to "calm down now".
He said Israel called off further attacks at his command to preserve the deal to end a 12-day air war with Iran, the biggest ever military confrontation between the Middle East arch-foes that had raised fears of global repercussions.
Following those remarks, however, two witnesses reached by telephone in the Iranian capital said they heard two loud blasts.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office acknowledged that Israel had bombed 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.
The Islamic Republic denied launching any missiles and said Israel's attacks had continued for an hour-and-a-half beyond the time the truce was meant to start.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said later Tehran would not violate the ceasefire unless Israel did so, and that it was prepared to return to the negotiating table, without elaborating, according to state-run Nournews.
Whether the truce can hold is
a major question. Signaling a difficult path ahead, it took hours for Israel and Iran to even acknowledge that they had accepted the ceasefire that Trump said he had brokered.
Still,
oil prices fell and share markets rose worldwide at the prospect of an end to the conflict, lifting a threat of disruption to oil supplies from the Gulf to the wider world.
Trump, en route to a
NATO summit in Europe, had admonished Israel with an obscenity in an extraordinary outburst at an ally whose air war he had joined two days before by dropping massive bunker-buster bombs on
Iran's underground nuclear sites. "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 breaching the ceasefire, but particularly frustrated with Israel, which he said had "unloaded" shortly after agreeing to the deal.
#cnn
#bbc
blogpay
Total Comments: 0