Negotiations between the US and Iran remain ongoing, US President Donald Trump said early on Tuesday morning, just hours after Iran and Israel agreed to halt attacks on one another that threatened to shatter a shaky ceasefire.<\/p>\n
Trump said the talks with Tehran did not stop during the escalation in violence, signalling that a deal to formally end the war could be reached within “one or two days from now, but I think it’s going well.”<\/p>\n
“They were going back and forth, and now they both agreed through me to stop, and we’re in the final throes of what will be a very, very good deal that will not allow in any way, shape, or form nuclear weapons, etc.,” the US president told reporters as he prepared to return to the White House after attending an NBA finals game in New York.<\/p>\n
“The Strait (of Hormuz) will open up right away, it’ll open up immediately upon signing, which could be in two or three days,” he added.<\/p>\n
Trump says missiles were \u2018on their way\u2019 to Iran when he spoke to Netanyahu<\/p>\n
According to a reported conversation with the\u00a0BBC, US President Trump has denied that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu defied him by attacking Iran in retaliation for missile attacks on Israel,\u00a0Al Jazeera\u00a0reported on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
In their dialogue with Netanyahu, Trump told him to \u201cuse common sense\u201d as \u201cwe\u2019re close to signing a very powerful deal, a very good deal,\u201d according to the report.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0BBC\u00a0also asked Trump if Netanyahu defied him by firing at Iran on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The broadcaster quoted Trump as saying that the missiles were \u201calready on their way\u201d when he spoke with the Israeli prime minister.<\/p>\n
He added, \u201cIf I tell him to do something, he does it.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the past, Trump reportedly warned Netanyahu against attacking targets in Lebanon, including Beirut, but he went ahead anyway.<\/p>\n
Trump says US helicopter pilots who went down in Strait of Hormuz are fine<\/p>\n
Two US pilots whose helicopter crashed near the Strait of Hormuz “are fine”, Trump said on Tuesday after the New York Times reported the crew of an Apache gunship had been rescued after the aircraft went down near the Iran-controlled waterway.<\/p>\n
It was not immediately clear whether the Apache was shot down by Iranian fire, experienced mechanical failure or encountered some other problem, the report said.<\/p>\n
The White House, US Department of State, and the US Central Command did not immediately respond to requests for comment from\u00a0Reuters.<\/p>\n
Asked if he knew what brought the helicopter down, Trump said they would issue a report later on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
“The pilots are fine,” Trump said, speaking on the runway at John F Kennedy International Airport before returning to Washington, DC “Nobody injured.”<\/p>\n
The incident happened a day after Iran and Israel said they had halted attacks on each other following an appeal from Trump, though Tehran warned it would resume hostilities if Israel continued to hit Hezbollah in Lebanon.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s Baghaei slams US for seizing country\u2019s assets<\/p>\n
Esmaeil Baghaei, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson, has shared on X a video of Scott Bessent, the US Treasury secretary, in which he speaks with pride about the seizure of assets belonging to Iran, as per\u00a0Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n
He also quoted an excerpt from the play \u201cMacbeth\u201d by William Shakespeare:<\/p>\n
Trump says US will declare ‘total victory’ over Iran within 2 weeks<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump said on Monday that the United States will declare “total victory” over Iran within the next two weeks, just hours after Iran and Israel agreed to halt the worst escalation in violence since a ceasefire took effect in April.<\/p>\n
“We’ve been a very tough team, and I think we are winning that battle, but you’re really going to win it over the next two weeks when we declare total victory,” Trump said during a telerally for Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close Republican ally. “It’ll be a total victory. It’ll happen very soon, and oil prices will come tumbling down.”<\/p>\n
Earlier Monday, Iran announced an end to its attacks on Israel but warned of a \u201ccrushing\u201d response if Israeli military operations in Lebanon continue. The Iranian military said Israel and its allies “should have learned” lessons from Tehran’s response.<\/p>\n
Regional tensions spiked Sunday when Israel bombed the Lebanese capital of Beirut despite an ongoing ceasefire. The move prompted Iran to launch retaliatory missiles into northern Israel, which in turn triggered waves of Israeli airstrikes against Iranian targets.<\/p>\n
Trump intervened early Monday, posting on his Truth Social platform to call on Israel and Iran to stop fighting “immediately.” On Monday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised address that the fighting with Iran had stopped “for now” but warned Israel would retaliate if it came under attack.<\/p>\n
Four people killed in Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon<\/p>\n
At least four people have been killed during Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon, the country\u2019s\u00a0National News Agency (NNA)\u00a0reported, according to\u00a0Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n
Imad Ahmad Yassin (owner of Yassin Poultry Farms) was killed in an airstrike that targeted his farm in the town of Adshit. Osama Hassan Al-Khaled, a 16-year-old, was killed in a drone strike that targeted him in front of his house in the Al-Sharifa neighbourhood of the town of Haboush.<\/p>\n
Two people were killed after a drone strike at dawn on the Al-Marj neighbourhood in the town of Kfar Rumman.<\/p>\n
At the same time, airstrikes were carried out this morning on the city of Nabatieh, Kfar Sir, and the area between the towns of Kfar Sir and Sir Al-Gharbiya, while the town of Jebchit was subjected to intermittent artillery shelling.<\/p>\n
Artillery shelling also targeted the outskirts of the towns of Mansouri and Majdal Zoun.<\/p>\n
Three people injured, including civil defence, after drone strike in Lebanon\u2019s Sharqiya<\/p>\n
Lebanon\u2019s Civil Defence said three people have been injured, including two of their personnel, in an Israeli raid on the town of Sharqiya, southern Lebanon,\u00a0NNA\u00a0reported, according to\u00a0Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n
In a statement, the Civil Defence said its teams were working to extract and provide first aid to one person who was injured, but during the rescue operation, the teams were targeted by a second drone strike, resulting in minor injuries to two of their staff.<\/p>\n
All those injured were transferred to the hospital, and the Civil Defence said it will continue to \u201cperform its humanitarian and relief duties and respond to emergency calls, despite the difficult field conditions and challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n
Israeli airstrike in Tyre kills eight<\/p>\n
At least eight people have been killed after an Israeli airstrike on a popular housing area in the city of Tyre, the civil defence in southern Lebanon reported to\u00a0Al Jazeera Arabic.<\/p>\n
The attack comes shortly after the Israeli military issued forced displacement orders for the city of Tyre.<\/p>\n
Israel issues fresh displacement orders for residents in Tyre<\/p>\n
The Israeli army\u2019s Arabic-language spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, has issued the latest forced displacement orders to citizens in southern Lebanon ahead of an attack, according to\u00a0Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n
In a post on X, Adraee issued the warning to residents in the city of Tyre, including those in the Christian Quarter and to the residents of the Shabariha Hammadieh, Jal al-Bahr, Zaqqouk, al-Mfadi, Al-Bass, Al-Maashouq, Burj al-Shamali, Nabatieh, Al-Hawsh, Al-Rashidieh, and Ain Baal camps.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs we warned in the past days, following Hezbollah elements\u2019 actions inside the Christian Quarter in the city, the Israel Defence Forces will be compelled to act against their terrorist activities in the quarter in the near term,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Iran and Israel say they have halted strikes on each other for now<\/p>\n
Iran and Israel\u00a0said on Monday\u00a0they had halted attacks on each other after an appeal from Trump, though Tehran warned it would resume hostilities if Israel continued to hit Hezbollah in Lebanon.<\/p>\n
The most significant confrontation between the two countries since April threatened to wreck Washington’s efforts to reach an agreement with Tehran to end their more than three-month-old war.<\/p>\n
Oil prices\u00a0rose\u00a0as much as 5% after the flurry of attacks, then fell when Iran’s military said its first wave of strikes on Israel was over. The dollar retreated from its highest level in nearly two months.<\/p>\n
A source briefed on the matter said Israel had also decided to halt its attacks on Iran.<\/p>\n
Tehran had fired missiles towards Israeli territory late on Sunday, calling them retaliation for attacks on Hezbollah on the outskirts of Beirut.<\/p>\n
Israel then hit Iranian air defence systems and a petrochemical plant that it said was used to produce ballistic missiles. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it retaliated with a strike aimed at a similar Israeli plant in the city of Haifa.<\/p>\n
No deaths were reported by authorities on either side.<\/p>\n
Trump said Israel and Iran both wanted an immediate ceasefire.<\/p>\n
“Final negotiations on ‘Peace’ are proceeding, subject to ignorance or stupidity getting in its way,” he wrote on Truth Social.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
US and Israeli officials said Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke on Monday.<\/p>\n
In an interview with Axios published on Monday, Trump said he warned Netanyahu that if the Israeli leader went back to war with Iran, he might find himself fighting alone. “I said, ‘Bibi, you better be careful, or you will be on your own very soon,'” Trump said.<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s Ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter pushed back on reports that Trump pressured Netanyahu, telling Fox News\u2019 \u201cSpecial Report\u201d that conversations between the two leaders were cooperative and accusing journalists of playing up a misleading narrative.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have a deep friendship that goes back some 40 years, and sometimes lovers have a spat, and sometimes the tension in the room and on the conversation can get a little heated,\u201d Leiter said.<\/p>\n
An Israeli military official said Israel was prepared to continue operations for “as long as it takes”, while Iranian officials struck a similarly defiant tone. A military source quoted by the semi-official Tasnim news agency said Tehran was ready for a prolonged conflict and could renew strikes against US interests in the region.<\/p>\n
‘Extreme suspicion’<\/p>\n
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged all parties to exercise maximum restraint and refrain from any action that could further inflame an already volatile situation, according to spokesperson Farhan Haq.<\/p>\n
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said Tehran was exchanging messages with Washington in an atmosphere of “extreme suspicion.”<\/p>\n
Ebrahim Azizi, head of the Iranian parliament’s national security committee, warned that any action against Iranian national security or Iran’s allies in the region, including Yemen’s Houthis, would be met with a decisive and costly response, Iranian media reported.<\/p>\n
Yemen’s Houthis pledged in a statement to stop Israeli navigation in the Red Sea, and said they had also fired missiles at Israel.<\/p>\n
The Israeli military later said it intercepted a suspicious aerial target from Yemen after hostile aircraft sirens sounded in the Eilat area.<\/p>\n
The Houthis have so far largely stayed out of the regional war. They control territory at the mouth of the Red Sea, increasingly important as an alternative route for millions of barrels per day of Middle East oil otherwise blocked by Iran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
In Tehran, Iranian media reported explosions, with air defences shooting down a drone over the capital. There were no immediate reports of casualties or major damage.<\/p>\n
There were also signs of conditions returning to normal. Flights resumed at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Airport on Tuesday, nearly 24 hours after being suspended following Iran’s missile attack on Israel, Iranian media reported.<\/p>\n
Lebanese-Israeli talks to resume<\/p>\n
Israel has never halted its Lebanon campaign, which has killed thousands of people, saying it should be treated separately from any US-Iranian ceasefire. Hezbollah has also continued its attacks.<\/p>\n
Tehran has long said any peace deal with the US depends in part on an end to fighting in Lebanon, which Israel invaded in March in pursuit of Hezbollah fighters who had fired across the border.<\/p>\n
The US ambassador to Lebanon, Michel Issa, said on Monday that Lebanese-Israeli negotiations had been scheduled to resume in Washington.<\/p>\n
Tehran has continued to block most shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, which before the war carried a fifth of the world’s crude oil and liquefied natural gas. Washington has imposed its own blockade of Iranian ports.<\/p>\n
Trump has said any peace deal must ensure Iran cannot develop a nuclear weapon. Iran’s demands include the lifting of international sanctions, the release of billions of dollars in frozen assets and recognition of its control of the strait.<\/p>\n
US VP says America in good position to achieve Iran talks goals<\/p>\n
Vice President JD Vance has told\u00a0Fox News\u00a0that the US is in a good position to achieve Trump\u2019s goals through negotiations with Iran,\u00a0Al jazeera\u00a0reported early on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Iranians don\u2019t want this war to continue. It\u2019s not in their best interest, and I think they\u2019re coming to the table, putting some real things on the table \u2013 we\u2019re of course going to verify,\u201d Vance said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we get to this deal, it\u2019s going to be a home-run win for the American people,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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