US President Donald Trump yesterday said that a ceasefire between Iran and Israel was holding, shortly after he lashed out at both nations and cursed as he accused them of violating the truce.
In a fast-moving series of declarations, the 79-year-old Republican, who was on his way to attend a NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands, posted on his Truth Social platform that “the Ceasefire is in effect.”
Israel “is not going to attack Iran. All planes will turn around and head home, while doing a friendly ‘Plane Wave’ to Iran. Nobody will be hurt,” Trump wrote.
Photo: EPA
Minutes earlier, he had castigated Iran and also close US ally Israel for violating a ceasefire he had originally announced late on Monday.
The two nations have been “fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing, do you understand that?” the president told reporters at the White House.
Iran violated the ceasefire, “but Israel violated it, too,” Trump told reporters on the White House’s South Lawn as he departed for the NATO summit.
“So I’m not happy with them. I’m not happy with Iran either, but I’m really unhappy if Israel is going out this morning,” he said.
“I’ve got to get Israel to calm down,” he said. “Israel, as soon as we made the deal, they came out and dropped a load of bombs the likes of which I’ve never seen before.”
If it holds, the truce would be a big political win for Trump in the wake of his risky decision to send US bombers over the weekend to attack three nuclear facilities in Iran that Israel and the US say were being used to build an atomic bomb in secret.
The US leader had said the truce would be a phased 24-hour process beginning at about 4am GMT yesterday, with Iran unilaterally halting all operations first. He said Israel would follow suit 12 hours later.
Israel has been bombing Iran in an offensive that began on June 13. The US joined the attack with a mission starting overnight Friday to Saturday against the deeply buried Fordow complex and two other sites.
Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said that the US bombing mission was a success.
“I think it’s been completely demolished,” he said, berating US journalists for “fake news” and calling two networks “scum” for reporting that it remains unclear whether the Iranian nuclear infrastructure was truly dismantled.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces yesterday killed at least 40 Palestinians in Gaza and ordered new evacuations, local medics and residents said, in further bloodshed shortly after Israel and Iran agreed to a ceasefire.
The Israel-Iran deal raised hopes among Palestinians of an end to more than 20 months of war in Gaza that has widely demolished the territory and displaced most residents, with malnutrition widespread.
“The whole universe has let us down. Hezbollah reached a deal without Gaza, and now Iran has done the same,” said Adel Farouk, 62, from Gaza City.
“We hope Gaza is next,” he said via a chat app.
Marwan Abu Naser of al-Awda hospital in Nuseirat in central Gaza said it had received 19 dead and 146 injured from crowds who tried to reach a nearby aid distribution center of the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
Abu Naser said that the casualties resulted from gunfire.
Israel’s military said that a gathering overnight was identified adjacent to forces operating in Gaza’s central Netzarim Corridor, and it was reviewing reports of casualties.
Separately, 10 other people were killed by an Israeli airstrike on a house in the Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City, while 11 were killed by Israeli gunfire in the southern city of Khan Younis, medics said, raising the day’s toll to at least 40.
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