Israel Accuses Iran of Violating Ceasefire with Missile Launches

Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said Iran had “completely violated” the ceasefire between Israel and Iran by launching missiles after the ceasefire came into effect.

Mr Katz said he instructed the military to resume targeting Iranian paramilitary and government targets.

Iran’s military denied firing missiles at Israel after the ceasefire started, Iranian state television said.

Israel said it had identified missiles launched from Iran into its airspace less than three hours after the ceasefire went into effect, after both Israel and Iran accepted US President Donald Trump’s plan to end the 12-day war rocking the Middle East.

Iranian state television quoted the general staff of Iran’s armed forces, which includes its regular military and its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, as making the denial.

Sirens sounded across northern Israel and explosions could be heard as Israeli air defences fired.

Mr Katz instructed the Israeli military to ‘respond forcefully’.

Israel said it had intercepted the midmorning barrage of missiles.

Israel’s finance minister Bezalel Smotrich wrote on X after the missiles were launched: “Tehran will tremble.”

Earlier, Iran’s top diplomat had said the country was prepared to halt airstrikes.

“As of now, there is NO ‘agreement’ on any ceasefire or cessation of military operations,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote in a post on X.

“However, provided that the Israeli regime stops its illegal aggression against the Iranian people no later than 4am Tehran time, we have no intention to continue our response afterwards.”

Mr Araghchi added: “The final decision on the cessation of our military operations will be made later.”

A deputy governor in Iran’s northern Gilan province along the Caspian Sea said an Israeli strike before the ceasefire killed nine civilians, state media reported.

The latest barrage came after Israel and Iran accepted a ceasefire plan proposed by Mr Trump, after Tehran launched a retaliatory limited missile attack on a US military base in Qatar.

The acceptance of the deal by both sides came after Tehran launched an onslaught of missiles targeting Israel that killed at least four people early on Tuesday morning, while Israel launched a blitz of airstrikes targeting sites across Iran before dawn.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had agreed to a bilateral ceasefire with Iran in co-ordination with Mr Trump.

Mr Netanyahu said that he had reported to Israel’s security cabinet on Monday night that Israel had achieved all of its war goals in the 12-day operation against Iran, including removing the threat of Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.

However, Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid told a group of British MPs he believes much — but not all — of Iran’s enriched uranium was destroyed by Israeli and US strikes.

“We think at least the majority of it might be, gone, but not everything,” he said.

Israel also damaged Iran’s military leadership and several government sites and achieved control over Tehran’s skies, Mr Netanyahu said.

“Israel will respond forcefully to any violation of the ceasefire,” Mr Netanyahu said.

The earlier Iranian barrages had sent Israelis hurrying into bomb shelters as the sun rose, killing at least four people and injuring 20 others, Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue services said.

Iran on its state television announced an overall ceasefire had begun at 7.30am local time.

The barrage damaged at least three densely packed residential buildings in the city of Beersheba, police said.

First responders said they retrieved four bodies from one building and were searching for more.

Israeli soldiers and rescue workers carry a body from a residential building destroyed by an Iranian missile strike that killed several people, in Beersheba, Israel, on Tuesday (Bernat Armangue/AP)

Outside, the shells of burned out cars littered the streets. Broken glass and rubble covered the area. Hundreds of emergency workers gathered to search for anyone else trapped in the buildings.

Police said some people were injured even while inside their apartments’ reinforced safe rooms, which are meant to withstand rockets and shrapnel but not direct hits from ballistic missiles.

The direct hit in the largest city in southern Israel came just days after the city’s hospital sustained significant damage in a missile strike.

The Israeli military said people could leave bomb shelters but cautioned the public to stay close to shelter for the coming hours.

Mr Trump’s announcement that Israel and Iran had agreed to a “complete and total ceasefire” came soon after Iran launched a limited missile attack on Monday on a US military base in Qatar, retaliating for the American bombing of its nuclear sites.

The US was warned by Iran in advance, and there were no casualties.

Mr Trump’s announcement on his Truth Social platform said the ceasefire beginning about midnight Washington time would bring an “Official END” to the war.

There were no reports of Israeli strikes in Iran after 4am in Tehran. Heavy Israeli strikes continued in Iranian cities until shortly before that time.

Under the Trump plan, Israel was to halt its attacks on Iran by 1.30pm Tehran time.

Writing more than an hour after the first phase of the tentative ceasefire, which called for Iran to halt its attacks, Mr Trump added: “THE CEASEFIRE IS NOW IN EFFECT. PLEASE DO NOT VIOLATE IT! DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!”

Mr Trump gave the conflict between Israel and Iran a name: the “12 Day War”. That recalls the 1967 Mideast war, known by some as the “Six Day War,” in which Israel fought a group of Arab countries including Egypt, Jordan and Syria.

Mr Trump’s reference carries emotional weight for the Arab world, particularly Palestinians. In the 1967 war, Israel captured the West Bank and east Jerusalem from Jordan, the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, and the Golan Heights from Syria.

Though Israel later gave the Sinai back to Egypt, it still holds the other territories.

Mr Trump communicated directly with Mr Netanyahu to secure the ceasefire, according to a senior White House official who insisted on anonymity to discuss the Monday talks. Vice president JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff communicated with the Iranians through direct and indirect channels.

The White House has maintained that the Saturday bombing helped get the Israelis to agree to the ceasefire and that the Qatari government helped to broker the deal.

It is unclear what role Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s leader, played in the talks. He said earlier on social media that he would not surrender.

People take shelter in an underground metro station as air raid sirens warn of incoming Iranian strikes in Haifa, Israel (Baz Ratner/AP)

Israel’s Airports Authority said Iran’s barrage forced them to close the country’s airspace to emergency flights for several hours.

Some flights were forced to circle over the Mediterranean Sea, according to Israeli media.

Israel’s airports have been closed since the war with Iran began, but a handful of emergency flights started arriving and departing over the past few days.

By early on Tuesday, Qatar Airways resumed its flights after Qatar shut down its airspace over the Iranian attack on Al Udeid Air Base. Flight-tracking data showed commercial aircraft again flying in Qatari airspace, signalling Doha believed the threat on the energy-rich nation had passed.

A military plane evacuating 101 French nationals from Israel to Cyprus took off from Ben Gurion Airport on Tuesday, French authorities said.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said similar evacuation flights will follow.

In Israel, at least 28 people have been killed and more than 1,000 wounded in the war. Israeli strikes on Iran have killed at least 974 people and wounded 3,458 others, according to the Washington-based group Human Rights Activists.

The group, which has provided detailed casualty figures from Iranian unrest such as the protests surrounding the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022, said of those killed, it identified 387 civilians and 268 security force personnel.

The US has evacuated some 250 American citizens and their immediate family members from Israel by government, military and charter flights that began over the weekend, a State Department official said.

There are roughly 700,000 American citizens, most of them dual US-Israeli citizens, believed to be in Israel.

Drones attacked military bases in Iraq overnight, including some housing US troops, the Iraqi army and a US military official said on Tuesday.

No casualties were reported and no group claimed responsibility for the attacks in Iraq. Some Iran-backed Iraqi militias had previously threatened to target US bases if the US attacked Iran.

Iraqi army spokesperson Sabah Al-Naaman in a statement called the attacks a “treacherous and cowardly act of aggression” and said they had damaged radar systems at Camp Taji, north of Baghdad, and at Imam Ali Base in Dhi Qar province. Iraqi forces shot down drones at other locations, he said.