Iran and Israel said on Monday that they were done with a round of attacks that briefly shattered a two-month cease-fire and threatened to push the Middle East back into full-blown war. Both countries also warned that they stood ready to strike each other again.
Iran’s military said that it was stopping for now, after it fired ballistic missiles at Israel on Sunday in retaliation for an Israeli strike near the Lebanese capital, Beirut, against its ally Hezbollah. But the Iranian military said that if Israel resumed its “aggression and hostile acts,” including in southern Lebanon, which has been occupied by Israeli troops, “much harsher and more forceful actions than before will follow.”
Israel also pulled back on further attacks after it launched two waves of airstrikes across Iran, including against the country’s largest petrochemical complex, prompting further Iranian missile fire on central Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, at the urging of President Trump, instructed the Israeli military to halt preparations for another strike on Iran on Monday, according to two Israeli military officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
In a brief video message on Monday, Mr. Netanyahu confirmed that “fire is on hold” against Iran. He said Iran had tried to “force a new equation” by attacking Israel in retaliation for attacks on Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia in Lebanon.
“This equation is unbearable, and unacceptable to me,” Mr. Netanyahu said, adding that if Iran “makes the mistake of resuming attacks on us, we will respond with overwhelming force.”
In a phone call on Monday morning, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Netanyahu not to carry out more strikes on Iran, according to senior U.S. and Israeli officials, who were not authorized to discuss the call publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The president told Mr. Netanyahu that he believed Iran and the United States were close to a deal to end their conflict, although there has been no public sign of a breakthrough after weeks of indirect talks.
Mr. Trump’s intervention was the latest sign of a divide between him and Mr. Netanyahu that has grown since they decided to launch a joint bombing campaign against Iran in late February.
In another sign of that tension, Mr. Trump told Fox News on Sunday that he was “not happy” that Israel had struck Beirut’s southern outskirts in an attack that he said had not been coordinated with the U.S. military. Israel said it had targeted a Hezbollah command center in the area after the group fired rockets into Israel.
Last week, Mr. Trump confirmed in an interview with The New York Post that he had called Mr. Netanyahu “crazy” during a phone call and had used expletives to express his displeasure with Israel’s military onslaught in Lebanon.
Mr. Trump also told Fox on Sunday that he had a message for Iran after its latest assault on Israel: “You’ve shot your missiles — that’s enough. Get back to the table and make a deal.”
The strikes were the first between Israel and Iran since a cease-fire in April, which was supposed to pause the U.S.-Israeli assault on Iran and buy time for negotiators to hammer out a long-term peace agreement.
After the latest exchange of attacks on Monday, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s Parliament and the chief negotiator with the United States, said that Iran had “disrupted the equation of a cease-fire on paper and its repeated violations in the field.”
The authorities reported no casualties in Israel after the military said it had intercepted the Iranian attacks. The incoming fire set off an all-too-familiar cycle for Israelis, whose nation has been at war for most of the past three years, as residents dashed back and forth to bomb shelters. Schools were also canceled, and businesses were closed.
“We’re in a never-ending loop of war,” said Eugene Koval, 47, who works in hospitality in the port city of Jaffa, Israel. “The only way out is through a political deal, but this government is incapable of getting on board with one.”
Jafar Miadfar, the chief of Iran’s emergency medical services, said that 14 people had been injured by Israeli attacks in Mahshahr, an industrial area that is home to Iran’s largest petrochemical complex. A 15th person was injured in Tehran, Mr. Miadfar said in a statement carried by Iran’s state broadcaster, IRIB.
The kindling for the sudden flare-up was in Lebanon, where fighting between Hezbollah and Israel has raged, complicating Mr. Trump’s push for a peace agreement with Iran.
Iranian and American officials have been negotiating for months through regional intermediaries. But they have been unable to agree on a deal that would end Iran’s effective blockade on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, a critical transit route for crude oil and natural gas, and restrain the country’s nuclear program.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of Pakistan, who has been helping to mediate talks between Iran and the United States, said the latest violence only underscored the fragility of the truce and the need for a durable peace deal.
“Especially when the final objective is just about to be achieved, we sincerely urge all sides to exercise restraint and give peace a little more chance,” Mr. Sharif wrote on social media.
Iran has insisted that any peace deal must apply to Lebanon — a condition that Mr. Netanyahu has firmly rejected. In his video statement to Israelis on Monday, Mr. Netanyahu said he had made clear to Mr. Trump that Israel had “the full right to self-defense, and we are exercising it as required.”
“I’m saying this to you, just as I’ve said so with appreciation and respect in my good conversations with my friend President Trump,” Mr. Netanyahu said.
Israeli leaders believe Iran is trying to carve out a “zone of immunity” for Hezbollah to operate in Lebanon, which would erode Israel’s regional position, said Aaron David Miller, a former State Department official and Middle East expert.
Lebanon’s government has been negotiating with Israel, but it has no direct control over Hezbollah and has been unable to disarm the group, despite Western pressure to do so. Lebanese leaders have criticized Hezbollah for dragging the country into a devastating war with Israel at what they say is Iran’s behest.
The Houthis, an Iranian-backed group in Yemen, also fired a ballistic missile at central Israel on Monday and announced a naval blockade against Israel in the Red Sea, although it was unclear what that threat would mean in practice. In 2023, Houthi attacks in the Red Sea snarled global shipping and prompted a U.S.-led bombing campaign.
Although Iran warned that it would resume strikes if Israel did not stop its attacks in southern Lebanon, Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, said that Israel would continue striking Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“Any Iranian attempt to tie Lebanon and Iran and attack Israel will be answered forcefully, as it was yesterday,” Mr. Katz said in a statement on Monday.
Analysts said Israeli and Iranian leaders have both drawn a hard red line through Beirut, precipitating the latest escalation and threatening to return the countries to a wider war.
Recent evidence suggests “neither is willing to compromise,” said Lina Khatib, an associate fellow at Chatham House, a research institute in London.
Reporting was contributed by Adam Rasgon, Johnatan Reiss, Max Bearak, Lara Jakes and Michael Levenson.
Aaron Boxerman is a Times reporter covering Israel and Gaza. He is based in Jerusalem.
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