A fragile cease-fire between Israel and Iran appeared to take hold on Tuesday after a final volley of deadly strikes between the two countries infuriated President Trump and highlighted the difficulty of ending a war that had raged for 12 days.
The details of the cease-fire remain unclear, but it came together after Mr. Trump asked for Qatar’s help, and the Qatari prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, persuaded Iran to end the fighting with Israel, according to three diplomats who were briefed on the matter and insisted on anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
Mr. Trump had abruptly announced the truce on Monday evening, surprising some of his own advisers. The announcement came after Iran had fired missiles at an American military base in Qatar in retaliation for U.S. strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites over the weekend. Iran had given advance warning of its strike, allowing U.S. and Qatari forces to shoot down most of the missiles, American and Israeli officials said. There were no casualties.
As the cease-fire went into effect on Tuesday morning, Mr. Trump angrily accused Israel and Iran of violating the deal, and he demanded that the two countries end the war. As he boarded Marine One to begin a trip to The Hague for a NATO summit, Mr. Trump told reporters that Israel and Iran “have been fighting so long and so hard” that they did not what they were doing — adding an expletive for emphasis.
Mr. Trump directed his strongest criticism at Israel.
“Israel, as soon as we made the deal, they came out and they dropped a load of bombs, the likes of which I’ve never seen before,” he said, adding, “I’m not happy with Israel.” He added that he would be “really unhappy” if Israel attacked Iran on Tuesday in retaliation for what the president described as “one rocket” fired from Iran, adding that it “didn’t land.”
A White House official said that Mr. Trump had spoken with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Tuesday morning and was “firm and direct” in exhorting him to sustain the cease-fire. In a post on social media, Trump warned Israel not to “DROP THOSE BOMBS,” saying “IF YOU DO IT IS A MAJOR VIOLATION. BRING YOUR PILOTS HOME NOW.”
The lack of clarity about the timing of the truce may have added to the confusion. Iran is half an hour ahead of Israel.
Mr. Netanyahu said on Tuesday afternoon that the cease-fire was to have taken effect at 7 a.m. Israel time. Four hours earlier, at 3 a.m., Israel attacked targets “in the heart of Tehran,” his office said. Tehran residents described a night of terrifying explosions caused by what they said was the heaviest Israeli bombardment since the war began on June 13.
Fifteen residents, speaking by phone and in text and audio messages, said large flames had illuminated the night sky over the city, and there had been huge clouds of smoke.
“No night has been like this; the sounds are huge; we can see fire and smoke from our window in multiple locations,” Alireza, a 27-year-old graduate student in Tehran, said in a phone message. He said he did not have electricity. “We don’t know if we will be alive tomorrow morning,” he said. He provided only his first name out of fear of retribution from the Iranian authorities.
Close to sunrise, the attacks in Iran ended, according to four residents in different parts of the city.
Then, shortly before the truce went into effect, Iran fired a barrage of missiles at Israel, killing at least four people when a missile hit an apartment building in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba, Israeli officials said. One body was found inside the fortified safe room of an apartment, and the three others were found outside of it, according to an Israeli military official, Col. Asher Benbenishti.
Just after 7 a.m. in Israel, Iran fired another missile, and then two more three hours later, according to Israel. Mr. Netanyahu’s office said those missiles were intercepted or fell in open areas.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said that, in retaliation for Israeli attacks on Iran overnight, Iran had launched 14 missiles at military and logistical centers in Israel in the “final minutes” before the cease-fire took effect, Iranian state media reported. In response, Mr. Netanyahu’s office said, Israeli forces had destroyed a radar position near Tehran, in what appeared to be a limited retaliation. Earlier, Israeli officials had threatened to respond with great force.
Mr. Trump said later that the cease-fire was holding.
“ISRAEL is not going to attack Iran,” he wrote on social media. “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!”
As night fell in the region, there was no evidence of further attacks in either Iran or Israel, indicating the truce was working.
Israel and Iran each framed the truce as a victory.
Mr. Netanyahu celebrated “a historic victory” in an address to the nation and said Israel had rendered Iran’s nuclear project useless. He added, “Israel has never had a friend like President Trump in the White House.”
The Iranian national security council said Tehran had “forced the enemy to regret and accept defeat and unilaterally stop its aggression.”
But in a phone call with the leader of the United Arab Emirates, Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said Tehran was “ready to resolve issues at the negotiating table,” according to an official readout of the call by Mr. Pezeshkian’s office.
He also asked the Emirati leader to tell the United States that Iran was “simply seeking its legitimate rights and has no demands beyond this, and definitely has not and will not seek a nuclear weapon.”
The statements suggested that Iran, despite earlier failed talks, was willing to engage in diplomacy.
A preliminary classified U.S. report says the American bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites sealed off the entrances to two of the facilities but did not collapse their underground buildings, according to officials familiar with the findings.
The report said much of Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium had been moved before the strikes, which destroyed little of the nuclear material. The early findings concluded that the strikes set back Iran’s nuclear program by only a few months, the officials said.
The Israeli military’s chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, said on Tuesday that Israeli forces were now shifting their attention back to Gaza as the cease-fire with Iran appeared to be holding. The focus, he said in a statement, was “to bring home the hostages and topple Hamas’s rule.”
Analysts said that Mr. Netanyahu, riding a wave of Israeli public support for the war against Iran, may now be in a stronger position to negotiate an end to the devastating war in Gaza that began more than 20 months ago.
For much of that time, the prospect of a negotiated, comprehensive cease-fire with Hamas, the armed Palestinian group that led the Oct. 7, 2023, attack against Israel, threatened to implode Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition government. But as Mr. Netanyahu’s poll numbers have risen, analysts and allies said, he may have the political capital to change course in Gaza.
The conflict with Iran began with Israeli airstrikes on June 13. Iran responded by firing hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones at Israel. In a turning point in the war, the United States then struck three Iranian nuclear sites, including Fordo, a heavily fortified installation built into the side of a mountain.
Since the fighting began, at least 606 people in Iran have been killed by Israeli strikes — 107 of them over the past 24 hours, the Iranian health ministry said on Tuesday. Iranian fire has killed 28 people in Israel, including the four on Tuesday, the Israeli government said.
After the announced cease-fire, Brig. Gen. Esmail Ghaani, commander of Iran’s Quds Forces, which oversees Iran’s proxy militias in the Middle East, made a public appearance on Tuesday, videos on state media show.
General Ghaani, without his military uniform, attended a victory rally in downtown Tehran — the first-known public appearance by a senior military commander since Israel assassinated most of the top military ranks of Iran’s Armed Forces and Revolutionary Guards.
Reporting was contributed by Adam Rasgon, Patrick Kingsley, Julian E. Barnes, Helene Cooper, Eric Schmitt, Jonathan Swan, Ronen Bergman, David E. Sanger, Matthew Mpoke Bigg, Farnaz Fassihi, Michael D. Shear, Sanam Mahoozi, Tyler Pager, Vivian Nereim, Vivian Yee, Euan Ward, Gabby Sobelman, Francesca Regalado and Leily Nikounazar.
Isabel Kershner, a Times correspondent in Jerusalem, has been reporting on Israeli and Palestinian affairs since 1990.
Aaron Boxerman is a Times reporter covering Israel and Gaza. He is based in Jerusalem.
Maggie Haberman is a White House correspondent for The Times, reporting on President Trump.
Michael Levenson covers breaking news for The Times from New York.
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