Tehran announces a "suspension" of operations after the first direct exchange since the truce; Trump demands both sides "immediately stop shooting"
Iran and Israel exchanged direct fire for the first time since their April truce on Monday, in a sharp escalation that has all but collapsed the US-brokered ceasefire and revived fears of a full regional war.
The latest round began when Israeli warplanes struck the southern suburbs of Beirut — the heartland of the Iran-backed group Hezbollah — without warning and over explicit American requests to hold off. Israel said the strike was retaliation for Hezbollah fire on its northern towns.
Iran answered with multiple waves of missiles aimed at northern Israel and Tel Aviv, its first direct attack on Israeli soil since the ceasefire took hold in April. Tehran cast the barrage as a "warning," insisting that any continued assault on Beirut's suburbs crossed a red line it would not abandon.
Israel then struck back across Iran overnight, hitting military and air-defence sites in Tehran, Tabriz, Isfahan and Karaj, as well as a petrochemical complex at Mahshahr in the southwest. The strikes further degraded air defences that Tehran had rushed to rebuild since 2025. Iranian officials reported no casualties at a military centre in Tabriz, while the Revolutionary Guard claimed it had hit the Nevatim and Tel Nof airbases and a chemical plant near Haifa. Neither side reported deaths from the direct exchange.
The fighting quickly spilled beyond the two principals. Yemen's Houthi rebels fired at Israel and declared a ban on Israeli shipping in the Red Sea, while Iraq and Syria closed their airspace and airports across western Iran and the capital suspended flights.
In Washington, President Donald Trump moved to cap the escalation, phoning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to urge against further retaliation. "Israel had its strike and Iran had its strike," he was quoted as saying. "We don't need another one." Hours later he posted that both countries "must immediately stop shooting," claiming each wanted an "immediate ceasefire" that only "stupidity" could derail. He added that the US naval blockade of Iran would remain in force until a final deal was reached.
Late Monday, Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya military command announced a "suspension" of armed-forces operations, while warning of "more crushing" blows if Israel kept striking Lebanon. Notably, Tehran did not target the US military bases scattered across the region this round — a sign, analysts said, that it wanted to halt the spiral rather than widen it.
Behind the violence lies a deadlock over Lebanon. Iran has tied any ceasefire to an end of the fighting there, treating Beirut's Shiite suburbs as untouchable; Israel and the United States have sought to keep Lebanon separate from a wider deal. With negotiations stalled and each side using force to extract concessions, the pause holds only so long as escalation stays a bargaining tactic rather than a goal.
Whether Iran's suspension survives a third barrage, whether Israel heeds Trump's call for restraint, and whether the strikes on Beirut resume will determine over the coming days whether this was an isolated flare-up or the start of something far wider.