Trump Confirms Iran-Israel Ceasefire, Criticizes Both Sides for Breaching Agreement
Trump Confirms Iran-Israel Ceasefire, Criticizes Both Sides for Breaching Agreement
U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that the ceasefire between Iran and Israel was holding, shortly after harshly criticizing both nations and using strong language to accuse them of breaching the agreement.
In a rapid series of statements, the 79-year-old Republican—en route to a NATO summit in The Hague—took to his Truth Social app to declare, “the ceasefire is in effect!”
“ISRAEL is not going to attack Iran. All planes will turn around and head home, while doing a friendly ‘Plane Wave’ to Iran. Nobody will be hurt,” Trump wrote.
Minutes earlier, he had castigated Iran and also close US ally Israel for violating a ceasefire he had originally announced late Monda
The two countries have been “fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing, do you understand that?” the president told reporters at the White House.
Iran violated the ceasefire, “but Israel violated it too,” Trump told reporters on the White House’s South Lawn as he departed for the NATO summit.
“So I’m not happy with them. I’m not happy with Iran either. But I’m really unhappy if Israel is going out this morning.”
“I’ve got to get Israel to calm down,” he said. “Israel, as soon as we made the deal, they came out and dropped a load of bombs the likes of which I’ve never seen before.”
Trump’s unusually public display of anger at Israel saw the US leader apparently trying to cajole his ally to call off warplanes in real time.
Earlier the same morning, he had posted on Truth Social: “ISRAEL. DO NOT DROP THOSE BOMBS” — without it being clear which bombs he was referring to.
“IF YOU DO IT IS A MAJOR VIOLATION. BRING YOUR PILOTS HOME, NOW!”
If it holds, the truce would be a big political win for Trump in the wake of his risky decision to send US bombers over the weekend to attack three nuclear facilities in Iran that Israel and the United States say were being used to build an atomic bomb in secret.
The US leader had said the truce would be a phased 24-hour process beginning at around 0400 GMT Tuesday, with Iran unilaterally halting all operations first. He said Israel would follow suit 12 hours later.
Israel has been bombing Iran in an offensive that began June 13. The United States joined the attack with a mission starting overnight Friday to Saturday against the deeply buried Fordow complex and two other sites.
Speaking to reporters at the White House, President Trump declared the U.S. bombing mission a success.
“I believe it’s been completely destroyed,” he said, while lashing out at American journalists for spreading what he called “fake news,” and labeling two media networks as “scum” for questioning whether Iran’s nuclear infrastructure had actually been dismantled.
In a separate post on Truth Social, he added, “Iran will never rebuild their nuclear facilities!”
AFP
