Trump demands Israel and Iran ‘immediately stop ‘shooting'

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump demanded on Monday that Israel and Iran "immediately stop 'shooting'", following a flurry of attacks that drove oil prices up around 4% and threatened to wreck US-led efforts to broker a deal to end the war.

Israel hit a petrochemical plant in southwestern Iran ‌that it said was used to produce ballistic missiles, and Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it retaliated with a strike aimed at a similar Israeli facility in the city of Haifa.

Trump later said the countries were aiming for a ceasefire while he insisted a deal is close.

Shortly after Iran launched the first barrage of ballistic missiles at Israel, Trump urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to refrain from retaliating, according to a US official, and signaled to journalists in a series of interviews that the US president was the one calling the shots.

“Final negotiations on ‘Peace’ are proceeding, subject to ignorance or stupidity getting in its way,” he wrote on Truth Social.

Iran’s top military command Khatam al-Anbiya central headquarters has said in a statement that “the cessation of armed forces operations is hereby announced”.

But they have warned in the same statement that if the attacks continue, “including in southern Lebanon,” Iran will respond “more severe and forceful than before".

Iran started its operations on Sunday in response to Israel attacking southern Beirut.

Senior Iranian political and military officials had issued warnings Sunday evening that Iran would respond militarily to what they described as breaches of ceasefire.

An Israeli military official said on Monday his country was prepared for a range of options in Iran, from several days to "as long as it takes", adding that it had struck Iranian air defence systems that were being ⁠rebuilt after previous Israeli attacks, as well as the petrochemical plant.

In a similarly defiant vein, an Iranian military source quoted by the Tasnim news agency said Tehran was prepared for a prolonged conflict with Israel and for renewed strikes against U.S. interests in the region.

“Necessary arrangements for this matter have been fully devised,” the state-affiliated news Tasnim news agency said, citing a “military source” it didn’t identify.

"If the Israelis and Americans imagine that through ‘controlled tension’ they can make Iran and the Resistance Front predictable in the face of their crimes, or limit the type of Iran’s response, they are committing a foolish mistake.”

The military source warned that Iran “will raise the level of tension” and that “the coming days will show that calculations of the Israelis and Americans are always wrong.”

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday that Tehran was exchanging messages with Washington in an atmosphere of "extreme suspicion". Israel's actions in Lebanon, whether carried out with US knowledge and consent or not, were aimed at sabotaging diplomacy, he added.

"The United States bears direct responsibility for any action the Zionist regime (Israel) takes in relation to violating regional peace and security against Iran," he said.

Iranian media later reported the sound of explosions in Tehran on Monday, and the semi-official Mehr news agency said air defences had shot down a drone over the capital. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.