JERUSALEM — After trading volleys of long-range missile strikes that defied calls for restraint from President Donald Trump and threatened to tip the region back into all-out war, Israel and Iran signaled Monday that the attacks had concluded for now.
The escalatory spiral that started over the weekend and stretched into Monday began after Israel carried out an airstrike Sunday in southern Beirut, a stronghold of the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.
“Currently, the fire on this front is contained, because after the terror regime in Tehran took a blow, it ceased attacking us,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday in a video address.
They “thought they would fire from Lebanese and Iranian territory into Israel, and that we would not act. That did not happen, and it will not happen,” he said.
Shortly before Netanyahu’s announcement, Iran said it had delivered a “painful response” to Israel and would halt its attacks, according to a statement from the Iranian armed forces’ headquarters on state-run media.
The strikes were the first time Iran and Israel directly attacked one another since the declaration of a ceasefire between Iran and the United States in April. For months, Iran has warned that Israeli operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon risk upending diplomatic efforts to end the war. Tehran specifically warned it would retaliate against Israeli territory if the Lebanese capital, Beirut, was targeted.
After Iran fired at Israel on Sunday, Trump told reporters that he was days away from a deal with Tehran and would call Netanyahu to tell him to refrain from retaliating. Israeli officials confirmed that Netanyahu spoke to Trump on Sunday night, Israel time, but there was no immediate readout of their conversation.
By Monday morning, Israel and Iran had fired dozens of missiles at each other, raising doubts about whether the U.S. president could contain a spiraling crisis that has caused heavy economic damage worldwide.
Israel dispatched jets overnight that hit Iranian air defense systems and a chemical plant in the Mahshahr region, according to Israeli officials. Iran, meanwhile, launched waves of missiles at military targets and a petrochemical refinery in northern Israel, setting off sirens and sending Israelis scrambling for shelter.
In his Monday announcement halting strikes on Iran, Netanyahu warned Tehran that his country would “respond forcefully” if attacked again.
Iran issued similar threats. “In the event of continued aggression and mischief, including in southern Lebanon, much more severe and devastating actions than before will be forthcoming,” Iran’s armed forces headquarters said, according to the semiofficial Fars News Agency.
The war with Iran, initiated by Trump and Netanyahu in late February, has proved deeply unpopular in the United States, where gasoline prices have surged as a result of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, an important shipping pathway for energy products.
Reopening the Strait of Hormuz has been a focus of the weeks of indirect negotiations between Iran and the United States to extend the ceasefire and formally end the war. U.S. negotiators are also pushing for curbs to Iran’s nuclear program. Iran’s leadership is demanding, among other things, a lifting of economic sanctions and a regionwide ceasefire — including an end to hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel — in exchange for reopening the strait.
Many in Israel have bristled at Trump’s efforts to reach a deal with Iran, while Netanyahu has insisted on maintaining the freedom to strike Hezbollah. Last week, Trump said in a podcast interview that he told Netanyahu he was “crazy” for continuing the fight against Hezbollah but that his relationship with the Israeli leader remained healthy.
Also Monday morning, another Iranian partner, the Houthi militia in Yemen, launched missiles at Israel. The Houthis had refrained for months from joining in hostilities.
Now, the group’s entry into the conflict could prove geopolitically and economically significant given the Houthis’ control of the Bab al-Mandab Strait, a gateway to the Suez Canal connecting Europe and Asia.
Iranian state media, citing an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, reported Monday that Tehran now would block the Bab al-Mandab — on top of its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz — if Israel escalated its attacks.
In recent months, even as war raged in the Persian Gulf, the Bab al-Mandab has remained largely navigable for most ships, including tankers carrying oil from Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea ports. The price for July delivery of Brent crude oil, an international benchmark, shot up more than 4 percent Monday morning to over $97 a barrel.
The Israeli attack in Dahiyeh, a southern Beirut suburb where Hezbollah holds sway, killed two and injured 20 on Sunday, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said last week that the IDF had refrained from powerful strikes in Lebanon’s capital, “except for targeted assassinations,” following a U.S. request, but it would strike Dahiyeh if Hezbollah hits communities in northern Israel.
Iran began its retaliatory strikes against Israel around 10 p.m. Sunday, with the first wave of missiles targeting the Ramat David Air Base in northern Israel. The base was called the “source” of aggression against southern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs, Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim news agency reported.
“Since last night, they fired close to 30 ballistic missiles at Israel,” an Israeli military official said Monday, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security operations. “At the same time, the Houthis also added two more; one fell on the way to Israel.”
In Israel, the Iranian attacks ratcheted up political pressure on Netanyahu. The Israeli premier faces widespread calls at home to do more to eliminate the threat posed by Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon, and Israeli elections are expected in September.
Many political observers — and a smattering of Netanyahu’s domestic rivals — have accused him of prolonging the fight against Hezbollah to provoke Iran and derail Trump’s ceasefire talks.
In an interview with Fox News on Sunday shortly after Iran launched its initial volley, Trump said he had not received advanced warning about Israel’s strike on Beirut earlier in the day and was “not happy about it.”
In Israel, the resumption of incoming missile fire from Iran sparked frustration and fear as residents sought shelter for the first time in months.
Four stories underground, in a parking lot beneath Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, Jewish religious students were volunteering to set up a makeshift clinic and wheeling patients in wheelchairs and hospital beds. One soldier on reserve duty said he was woken up after midnight Sunday night by the Israeli military’s Home Front and ordered to pack his clothes for several days and move the entire hospital underground, in a sign that Israel was preparing for a new, extended round of fighting with Iran.
“Maybe it’s a show, maybe it’s theatrics, maybe both sides are coordinating something small on both sides,” said the soldier, a 28-year-old student of Middle Eastern studies who declined to give his full name, citing fears of being reprimanded.
“We always do a bet between soldiers: how long do you think it’s going to take?” he said. “A couple of weeks is my guess. No one knows, my commander doesn’t know, even people higher up don’t know.”
George reported from Washington. Mohamad El Chamaa in Beirut and Heidi Levine in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.
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