A fragile ceasefire between Israel and Iran was immediately tested on Tuesday as new explosions rocked Tehran, just hours after President Donald Trump announced the truce. The reports of fresh strikes prompted Trump to issue an extraordinary public rebuke of Israel, the ally he had joined in bombing Iran just two days earlier.
The new explosions fueled a frantic blame game. Israeli army radio reported a strike on an Iranian radar site, which an Israeli minister claimed was retaliation for Iranian missiles fired in “blatant violation” of the truce. Iran denied launching any missiles, insisting Israeli attacks had continued well past the ceasefire deadline.
The chaos was amplified by Trump’s unfiltered social media posts. “Israel. Do not drop those bombs,” he posted on Truth Social. “Bring your pilots home, now!” Speaking to reporters, he expressed his frustration with both sides, saying they had been fighting “so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f— they’re doing.”
But despite the confusion and high-level drama, a sense of profound relief was palpable on the ground. “We’re happy, very happy. Who mediated or how it happened doesn’t matter. The war is over,” an Iranian man returning to Tehran told Reuters. In Tel Aviv, a man whose home was destroyed in a recent bombing shared a similar hope for a “new beginning.”
