Closing summary
We’ve shut this blog now and are continuing our live coverage on a fresh blog here. Below is a summary of the latest developments, and our full story with all the key lines can be found here. Thanks for reading.
The shaky truce between Iran and Israel appeared to hold, with both sides saying they would honour the ceasefire if the other side did the same. Earlier on Tuesday Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran would respect the ceasefire announced by Trump, provided that Israel also upholds its terms. “If the Zionist regime does not violate the ceasefire, Iran will not violate it either,” he said. Hours later, Israel’s defense minister Israel Katz said he told his US counterpart Pete Hegseth that “Israel will respect the ceasefire — as long as the other side does”.
An initial classified US assessment of Donald Trump’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities over the weekend says they did not destroy two of the sites and likely only set back the nuclear program by a few months, according to two people familiar with the report. The report produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency – the intelligence arm of the Pentagon – concluded key components of the nuclear program, including centrifuges, were capable of being restarted within months. The report also found that much of Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium that could be put to use for a possible nuclear weapon was moved before the strikes and may have been moved to other secret nuclear sites maintained by Iran. The findings suggest Trump’s declaration about the sites being “obliterated” may be overstated. Read our story here.
Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would strike again if Iran rebuilds its nuclear project. Describing his war on Iran as a “historic victory” that “will stand for generations”, the Israeli PM claimed that Israel in its 12 days of war with Iran had removed “the threat of nuclear annihilation”. He said on he had “no intention of easing off the gas pedal” and Israel “must complete” its campaign against the Iranian axis, to defeat Hamas and to bring about the release of the remaining hostages in Gaza.
Netanyahu also declared that Israel “never had a better friend that President Trump in the White House”. His comments came only hours after Trump directed stinging criticism at Israel over the scale of strikes Trump said violated the truce with Iran negotiated by Washington, with the US president saying: “Israel, as soon as we made the deal, they came out and they dropped a load of bombs, the likes of which I’ve never seen before, the biggest load that we’ve seen. We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.” Israel’s leadership was reportedly “stunned” and “embarrassed” by Trump’s harsh rebuke.
Iranian state news reported that Iran’s air space would reopen on Tuesday night, while Israel Home Front Command said Israeli citizens could resume full activity without restriction for most of the country and Ben-Gurion and Haifa airports would return to full operations.
Donald Trump said China can continue to purchase Iranian oil, a move the White House clarified did not indicate a relaxation of US sanctions.
At the United Nations, France and its European partners are still prepared to reactivate sanctions on Iran if an agreement is not reached soon on its nuclear program, the French ambassador to the UN has warned.
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Donald Trump’s startling outburst at Iran and Israel capped a drama-filled 24 hours for Trump, the US, the Middle East and the world. As both sides defied his ceasefire, the US president lashed out, his anger and frustration clearly visible as he swore on live television.
Trump later called Israel’s prime minister to demand he stop bombing Iran.
With the fragile ceasefire seeming to hold, there was some unwelcome news via a report from the Pentagon which said the US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities were not quite as successful as Trump had claimed.
That and much more is in our freshly launched daily wrap of key Trump stories:
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