Iran launched waves of missiles at Israel, and Israel said it struck military targets and a petrochemical complex in Iran, as an uneasy two-month truce broke down. President Trump called for the two sides to “immediately stop” the attacks.
Iran and Israel traded strikes on Monday and President Trump called for the two sides to “immediately stop” the attacks, as the two-month truce that had suspended the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran broke down.
The fighting has propelled the Middle East back to the precipice of the full-scale war that began in February with the U.S.-Israeli assault on Iran.
On Monday, Iranian ballistic missiles sent sirens wailing in central and southern Israel as booms from air defenses could be heard overhead. Israel’s air force bombarded sites in western and southern Iran, including the country’s largest petrochemical complex, the Israeli military said.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps threatened to target energy infrastructure across the region in response to the Israeli attack, saying that Israel had “initiated a dangerous game.” Earlier in the war, Iran fired volleys of missiles and drones at Arab states across the Gulf, including at critical energy depots and refineries.
The renewed fighting could tie up Mr. Trump’s efforts to extricate the United States from the war with Iran, which has proved politically costly and jacked up global oil and gas prices. He did not elaborate on what the United States might do to cool the escalating attacks between Israel and Iran, the first of their kind in two months.
The intensification of fighting left people across the Middle East bracing for further fighting after a cascade of events a day earlier.
On Sunday afternoon, Israel struck the southern outskirts of Beirut, the Lebanese capital, as part of its war with Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia. Iran had previously pledged to retaliate against Israeli strikes on Beirut. Hours after the Israeli strikes, Iran acted on its threats, launching a wave of ballistic missiles at Israel.
Mr. Trump told the Axios news site on Sunday that he planned to call Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to tell him not to respond to the first barrage of Iranian missiles.
The president also told the Financial Times that Mr. Netanyahu had no choice but to accept a deal with Iran. “I call all the shots,” the newspaper quoted Mr. Trump as saying. “He doesn’t call the shots.”
