Ceasefire violation? 'ISRAEL. DO NOT DROP THOSE BOMBS', warns US President Donald Trump

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday declared that both Israel and Iran had violated the ceasefire he announced hours earlier, and that he was not happy with either country—but especially Israel.

According to the ceasefire terms between the two warring nations—that he had announced in a Truth Social post earlier—Iran was to begin the ceasefire, followed by Israel.

“Officially, Iran will start the CEASEFIRE and, upon the 12th Hour, Israel will start the CEASEFIRE and, upon the 24th Hour, an Official END to THE 12 DAY WAR will be saluted by the World,” he had explained.

ALSO READ | Israel-Iran conflict: How did Trump, Qatar Emir convince Netanyahu and Tehran for ceasefire?

Speaking to reporters before leaving for the NATO summit in The Hague, Trump said that Israel had "unloaded" right after agreeing to the deal, despite his belief that Iran's nuclear capabilities had gone, a Reuters report said.

Trump's disapproval of the ceasefire violations comes amid Tel Aviv's defence minister Israel Katz's directive to respond forcefully to what he claimed was Iran's violation of the ceasefire, despite his own statement earlier about Israel having achieved its operational objectives by eliminating the “dual immediate existential threat from itself—both in the nuclear and ballistic missile fields”, as per a Guardian report.

Iran, on the other hand, has denied “the launch of missiles from Iran to the occupied territories (Israel) in the last few hours”, despite Israel claiming to have detected missiles from Iran, two-and-a-half hours after the start of the Trump-brokered ceasefire.

ALSO READ | Why Iran’s attack on US base in Qatar was a carefully choreographed one

This development has quickly modified the equation between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with the latter having thanked the US president just two days ago, for collaborating with the US in bombing three vital nuclear sites in Iran—Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz—an operation that came to be known as 'Midnight Hammer'.

Despite multiple warnings, Iran responded with a mortar strike on a US base in Syria, as well as missile strikes on a US base in Qatar—all of which was later revealed by the American defence department to be an elaborately choreographed, symbolic response—communicated by Tehran to the US and Qatar beforehand—that did no major damage.

As the ceasefire seems to be broken on both ends, and airspaces have been pre-emptively shut in various Middle Eastern countries in the vicinity of Iran, civilians from both nations that celebrated the ceasefire continue to hope that the hostilities will not restart.

Middle East