Israel said it carried out strikes on military targets in western and central Iran, pressing ahead even as reports said US President Donald Trump urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to avoid further attacks.
Just hours earlier, Mr Trump argued that any new exchanges of fire would not derail his administration’s negotiations with Tehran, stressing that Mr Netanyahu “doesn’t call the shots”.
In recent days, Mr Trump has pushed Israel to curb its military campaign in Lebanon to create space for a broader deal aimed at ending the wider war with Iran. That pressure has included a phone call last week in which he rebuked Mr Netanyahu with obscenities, according to earlier reporting.
Despite the diplomatic push, Israel earlier carried out strikes in the Beirut area — the first such attacks there since the US announced a truce plan for Lebanon last week.
Iran responded by firing a salvo of missiles at Israeli targets, a move that raised the stakes for US-Iran talks.
Still, Mr Trump maintained that a wider agreement remained close.
“It’s not going to have any impact on the deal,” Mr Trump told the Financial Times.
“I call the shots. I call all the shots. He (Mr Netanyahu) doesn’t call the shots.”
Within hours of those remarks, Israel’s defence forces said they had hit Iranian military targets.
People gather in Tehran to hold a demonstration supporting the Iranian government
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said Israel used air-launched ballistic missiles during its attacks.
“Everyone has had enough of this maniacal Iranian regime,” Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Yechiel Leiter, said on X, adding that Iran had fired 11 ballistic missiles at Israel.
“No self-respecting country in the world would tolerate such an attack, and neither will Israel,” he said. Mr Leiter added that Israel was striking Iran’s surface-to-surface missile launch sites and infrastructure facilities unrelated to the energy sector.
The renewed fighting jolted energy markets, lifting oil prices by more than 3% in early trading, with benchmark Brent futures climbing back above $96 a barrel.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they targeted Ramat David air base, near Nazareth.
The Israeli military said it detected missiles launched from Iran and that its air defences intercepted them.
Air raid sirens were heard in Tel Aviv, according to a Reuters witness. The Israeli military also reported identifying a missile launch from Yemen toward Israeli territory, saying aerial defence systems were activated to intercept the threat.
The strike was the first from Yemen on Israel since the 8 April truce.
Trump urged Netanyahu to hold off further strikes
Mr Trump spoke by phone with Mr Netanyahu from his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, for a little less than half an hour, an Israeli official said, without providing details.
The White House and the Israeli prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Mr Trump told Mr Netanyahu to refrain from further strikes because “we are close to doing something good in terms of a deal,” according to a US official quoted by Axios.
Donald Trump has repeatedly insisted that an agreement on ending the war is close
Even as negotiations have unfolded, Israel has continued attacks in Lebanon in its conflict with Hezbollah, with Israeli officials insisting that front should be treated separately from any Iran ceasefire.
Tehran has long said any deal with the US hinges on a ceasefire also holding in Lebanon. Israel invaded in March, saying it was pursuing Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters after rockets and drones were fired across the border in solidarity with Tehran.
Iran’s chief peace negotiator, Parliamentary Speaker Mohammed Baqer Qalibaf, said US bases and Israeli assets were legitimate targets because of hostile acts, including the “violation of agreements over Lebanon”.
Before yesterday, Iran had not attacked Israel since a ceasefire in the wider war began in April, although Hezbollah had continued to do so.
Mr Trump has repeatedly said Washington and Tehran are nearing an agreement to end the war.
“We’re very close to a deal, or I’m going to blow the hell out of them,” Trump said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” in a recorded interview that aired on Sunday to mark 100 days of the conflict.
Trump wants no attacks on Lebanon
Israel has not halted its Lebanon campaign, which has killed thousands of people and driven hundreds of thousands more from their homes.
Hezbollah, which stayed out of the truce talks, has also kept up its attacks and says it will not disarm unless Israel ends its strikes and withdraws from Lebanon.
Mr Netanyahu said Israel’s attacks on Beirut’s southern outskirts — the district known as Dahiyeh, long a Hezbollah stronghold — were ordered in response to Hezbollah fire toward Israel.
The wider war has been largely stalled since the US and Israel paused attacks on Iran in early April. Since then, Tehran has blocked most shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the main transit route for a fifth of the world’s crude oil and liquefied natural gas.
Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike in the southern Lebanese coastal city of Tyre
Washington has imposed its own blockade of Iranian ports.
Although Washington and Tehran have said they are close to a preliminary deal to reopen the strait, the two sides have repeatedly exchanged strikes. Tensions have intensified in recent days, including attacks on nearby Arab states that host US bases.
Mr Trump has said any agreement must ensure Iran cannot develop a nuclear weapon. He is also under pressure to secure terms tougher than those in the 2015 deal reached under then-President Barack Obama — an agreement Mr Trump later repudiated.
Tehran’s demands include lifting US and international sanctions, recognition of its influence over the strait and the release of billions of dollars in frozen assets.
A source familiar with US plans told Reuters on Saturday that Washington could make Iranian assets available to Gulf neighbours to repair damage inflicted by Iran.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said any such diversion of Iranian assets would be illegal and that Tehran would take measures in response.
