Donald Trump has claimed that Israel and Iran have negotiated a ceasefire, halting a two-week-old war that has killed hundreds in tit-for-tat strikes by Israeli warplanes and Iranian ballistic missiles.
The ceasefire was set to begin late on Monday, Trump said, with Iran halting its attacks first and then Israel set to cease offensive operations in the coming hours.
Trump said he hoped that the ceasefire would lead to an end of what he called the “12 Day War”. Shortly before the announcement, powerful explosions were reported in the Iranian capital of Tehran, according to Agence France-Presse.
“CONGRATULATIONS TO EVERYONE!” Trump wrote on the Truth Social platform. “It has been fully agreed by and between Israel and Iran that there will be a Complete and Total CEASEFIRE.”
There was no immediate official response from Iran or Israel. A senior Iranian official told Reuters that Tehran had agreed to the US-proposed ceasefire.
Hours earlier, it reported that three Israeli officials had signalled Israel was looking to wrap up its strikes on Iran soon and had passed the message on to the US. On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was “very, very close to completing” its goals.
The announcement came after the US joined the Israel-led campaign by striking Iranian uranium enrichment facilities early on Sunday morning, prompting Iran on Monday to launch a choreographed retaliatory strike against a US airbase in Qatar. Trump had called the Iranian attack a “very weak response” and said he would renew efforts to negotiate a peace between Israel and Iran.
The “END to THE 12 DAY WAR will be saluted by the World,” Trump added. “During each CEASEFIRE, the other side will remain PEACEFUL and RESPECTFUL. On the assumption that everything works as it should, which it will, I would like to congratulate both Countries, Israel and Iran, on having the Stamina, Courage, and Intelligence to end, what should be called, ‘THE 12 DAY WAR.’”
In an online post, Trump earlier thanked Iran for “giving us early notice” of a missile barrage against the US airbase in Qatar and said that no Americans had been killed or harmed in the attack.
His remarks suggested that the Iranian response was carefully coordinated to allow Tehran and Washington an off-ramp after the US joined in Israeli strikes target Iranian uranium enrichment facilities in order to cripple Iran’s nuclear program before the country could produce a bomb.
“Most importantly, they’ve gotten it all out of their “system,” and there will, hopefully, be no further HATE,” Trump wrote. “Perhaps Iran can now proceed to Peace and Harmony in the Region, and I will enthusiastically encourage Israel to do the same.”
Trump advisers privately said they believed Iran would accept the US president’s olive branch in order to avoid continued strikes by Israel, and because they had inflicted symbolic retaliation.
The ceasefire announcement also appeared an effort to reframe the metrics for success for the US operation targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities, after it was unclear whether the deeply buried Fordow site had been destroyed.
In a post on social media, Trump said the Iranian sites had been “totally destroyed”.
But the UN’s nuclear chief, Rafael Grossi, said: “At this time, no one, including the [International Atomic Energy Agency]is in a position to assess the underground damage at Fordow.”
Trump advisers tried to suggest it did not matter if Fordow was destroyed because Iran had been forced to the negotiating table – even though that would mark a departure from what Trump said he was aiming for over the weekend.
Still, the actual damage to the nuclear facilities remains an important question ahead of possible talks between US and Iran – expected to be led by Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff – as it would affect Witkoff’s negotiating leverage.
Other senior administration officials claimed victory. Vice-president JD Vance on Monday evening claimed Iran was “incapable of building a nuclear weapon with the equipment they have because we destroyed it”.
The US attack followed a wave of missile strikes between Israel and Iran, with Israel bombing the notorious Evin prison, and came after Trump raised the prospect of regime change in Tehran. But as of Monday evening, senior US officials had suggested that the Iranian attack on Qatar was designed to avoid a further escalation that could lead to an all-out war which could imperil the Iranian regime.
Trump said 13 of the 14 missiles fired by Iran had been shot down and that one was allowed to hit its target because it was “headed in a non-threatening direction”.
The Qatari defence minister told Al Jazeera television that the country’s defences had intercepted the incoming missiles, and that there had been no injuries. Al Jazeera showed footage of debris, reportedly from intercepted missiles lying on an unidentified street, surrounded by residents.
A US defence official confirmed that Iran had targeted the Al Udeid airbase in Qatar, the largest US military facility in the Middle East, in “a retaliatory but largely symbolic response” to the weekend US strikes.
The official said Iran launched medium-range ballistic missiles after communicating the move in advance to Qatari and US officials. There were no reports of US casualties.
Tehran’s symbolic retaliation was similar to that following the assassination of Gen Qassem Suleimani, the powerful leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in 2020. After Suleimani was killed in a US drone strike near the Baghdad airport, Iran fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles at two Iraqi airbases housing US forces.
In a statement posted on the X social platform while the missiles were in the air, Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said: “We neither initiated the war nor were we seeking it. But we will not leave aggression against the great Iran without answer.”
Iranian armed forces said the barrage was not directed at Qatar itself, which it described as a “friendly and brotherly” regime.
Qatar insisted it had the right to hit back.
“We consider this a flagrant violation of the sovereignty of the State of Qatar, its airspace, international law, and the United Nations charter,” the foreign ministry spokesperson, Majed al-Ansari, said in a social media post.
Emmanuel Macron expressed solidarity with Qatar, but he also warned that the US strikes against Iran had no “framework of legality”, adding that any regime change in the country should be a result of the will of the people, not of bombs.
Earlier in the day, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced it was “intensifying the attack on the military capabilities of the Iranian regime” with sorties involving 50 warplanes. Some of Monday’s attacks were aimed at the Fordow uranium enrichment plant.
An Israeli strike on Monday badly damaged the main gate to Evin prison in the north of the capital, used to detain political prisoners and ordinary criminals. Israeli bombs also targeted the headquarters of the Revolutionary Guards and of the Basij, a volunteer militia, which reports directly to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, said the armed forces were “currently striking, with unprecedented force, regime targets and governmental repression bodies in the heart of Tehran”.
Over the first 11 days of its attacks on Iran, the governing coalition of Netanyahu has repeatedly denied that regime change was a formal war aim, though the prime minister has said it would be a welcome outcome, and called on Iran’s people to rise up against the regime in Tehran. On Monday, however, members of his cabinet openly called for the overthrow of Iran’s theocratic regime.
The science and technology minister, Gila Gamleila leading member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, wrote on X, according to a translation by the Haaretz newspaper: “As long as the Nazi ayatollah regime sits in Tehran, it has the potential to rebuild its destructive capabilities.” He added: “Therefore, we must continue the campaign until the conditions are created for revolution and the removal of the ayatollah regime.” He signed off with the slogan: “Next year in Tehran.”
Iran’s judiciary confirmed the damage to Evin but, through its mouthpiece, the Mizan news agency, said: “The situation in the prison is under control and all means have been used to manage the prison complex.”
A Washington-based group, the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran, said: “Many families of current detainees have expressed deep concern about the safety and condition of their loved ones held inside the prison.”
Evin is not just used by the regime to incarcerate Iranian dissidents, but also foreigners and dual nationals who have been seized over the past several years for use as hostages and bargaining chips.
