President Trump said Monday that Iran and Israel agreed to a cease-fire to begin following their final military operations, hours after Iran fired a missile barrage against the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East.
In a social-media post Monday night, Trump said Israel and Iran have agreed to a “complete and total cease-fire” that would begin in phases over the course of Tuesday.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on X that his country would halt its attacks as long as Israel’s bombardments ended by 4 a.m. Tuesday local time or 8:30 p.m. Monday Eastern time. He later said Iran’s forces had fought right up to the last minute of that deadline.
Late Monday night, Trump continued to tout the cease-fire he said he brokered between Israel and Iran, saying both sides had sought a deal. Israel hadn’t commented on Trump’s announcement. Neither side replied to requests for comment.
“Israel & Iran came to me, almost simultaneously, and said, ‘PEACE!’ I knew the time was NOW,” he said on social media.
It wasn’t clear whether a cease-fire had taken hold. Trump’s latest comments came as warnings of Iranian missile attacks sent Israelis scrambling in and out of shelters beginning around dawn Tuesday local time. Israeli emergency responders said three people were killed in one of those attacks.
Trump’s cease-fire announcement came hours after Iran launched missiles at a U.S. base in Qatar, in a telegraphed attack that caused no injuries or deaths. Earlier on Monday, Trump said the U.S. received advance notice of Iran’s plan to attack a U.S. base in Qatar. Doha helped mediate the talks, people familiar with the matter said.
On Monday night, the president said the cease-fire would begin around midnight in Washington for the Iranians and 12 hours later for the Israelis. If that holds, he said, it would become “an Official END to THE 12 DAY WAR.”
Meanwhile, the fighting continued overnight, as Iranian state media said air defenses went off amid explosions in Tehran, while Israel’s military said it intercepted drones that had been launched from Iran.
All but one of 14 missiles launched toward Al Udeid air base in Qatar were shot down by U.S. forces with help from Qatar, and the remaining one flew off course, causing no casualties and little damage, Trump said.
Trump said Tehran’s careful response to Washington’s weekend attack on its nuclear facilities offered an opening to de-escalate the conflict.
By telegraphing the attack on the base, Iran appeared to have responded to the U.S. strikes in a way that allowed it to avoid further retaliation from Washington. Trump over the weekend urged Tehran not to retaliate and to negotiate an end to the war, which Israel initiated 10 days ago.
“I want to thank Iran for giving us early notice, which made it possible for no lives to be lost, and nobody to be injured,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “Perhaps Iran can now proceed to Peace and Harmony in the Region.”
Iran told Arab intermediaries that its well-telegraphed response should be seen as an off-ramp and that it is ready to return to serious negotiations, Arab officials said. The U.S. has signaled through the same channels that so far it doesn’t want to retaliate, they added.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said his country would respond when attacked, in his first public comments since Iran launched missiles at the U.S. base in Qatar after the U.S. bombed Iranian nuclear sites.
“We haven’t harmed anyone, and we will not accept harm from anyone, and we will not submit to harm from anyone; this is the logic of the Iranian nation,” he said on his official X account.
Tehran’s and Trump’s desire to de-escalate the conflict could face an obstacle in Israel, which has continued to carry out strikes on Iran, including on targets unconnected to its nuclear program.
Trump said in his post Monday that he would “enthusiastically encourage” Israel to halt its attacks.
The negotiations between the U.S. and Iran on a nuclear agreement, which were at a standstill over whether Tehran would agree to give up its enrichment of uranium, were suspended after Israel on June 13 and later the U.S. attacked Iran , arguing military action was necessary to halt its progress toward developing a nuclear weapon. Iran has said that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said Monday’s attack was in retaliation for what it called the U.S.’s “aggressive and brazen act” against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Underscoring the symbolic nature of the response, it said the number of missiles used in the operation mirrored the number of bombs used by the U.S. in its attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities—14 30,000-pound bunker busters. A Qatari military spokesman said 19 missiles had been launched at the country.
Qatar residents reported hearing explosions that shook the windows of their high-rise apartments. Residents of the Pearl, a man-made island in the capital Doha, recorded video of lights streaking across the evening sky, including one missile that collided with another coming from the opposite direction—an apparent interception by air defenses. An Interior ministry spokesman said some shrapnel fell in residential areas, sparking small fires that were extinguished without harming anyone.
Barely 15 minutes after the attack ended, Qatar’s foreign ministry issued a four-paragraph statement condemning it as “a flagrant violation of Qatar’s sovereignty and airspace” and affirming its right to make a proportional response. Qatar’s Arab neighbors rushed out similar statements of condemnation in an apparent effort to defuse the situation.
“We call today for this to be an end to the escalation,” Qatari Foreign Ministry Spokesman Majed al Ansari said in a televised news conference.
Neighboring Gulf countries, including the United Arab Emirates, briefly closed their airspace as the strikes were happening. Bahrain and Kuwait—which also host large U.S. military bases—sounded air raid sirens but weren’t targeted.
About 4 a.m. Tuesday, U.S. forces intercepted at least five one-way attack drones launched against American bases near Baghdad airport and in western Iraq, a U.S. official said. There were no American casualties or damage to U.S. facilities, said the official, who assessed that the drones likely originated inside Iraq, which hosts militias backed by neighboring Iran.
The limited Iranian counterattack was a calculated response that avoids more provocative steps such as closing the Strait of Hormuz , that might have prolonged the conflict, said Bader al-Saif, an expert on Persian Gulf and Arabian affairs at Kuwait University.
“This is something manageable when compared to closing Hormuz or a direct ship-to-ship attack that could have people killed,” he said.
The missile barrage echoes Iran’s response to the U.S. killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani , the top commander of Iran’s military operations abroad, in 2020.
In response to the killing at Baghdad airport , ordered by Trump in his first term, Iran launched 12 ballistic missiles at an Iraqi air base housing U.S. troops. More than 100 U.S. service members suffered traumatic brain injury in the attack, but no one was killed. Trump didn’t order a counterstrike, allowing tensions to ease, though he imposed sanctions on a number of Iranian military commanders involved in the attack.
Al Udeid houses around 10,000 troops and is a main hub for U.S. Air Force operations in the Middle East. The U.S. Air Force has an air-operations center at the base that monitors radar, video and satellite feeds and directs U.S. and allied warplanes operating from Al Udeid and other bases in the region.
But many of the aircraft at the base had been relocated in recent days as the prospects of an Iranian strike from across the Persian Gulf loomed.
Iran’s choice of Qatar as a target has its risks. Qatar shares a gas field with Iran and maintains relations with both Tehran and Washington that make it a useful intermediary, including in securing the release of five Americans from Iranian prison in September 2023.
“Iran is very lucky to have the emir, because he’s actually fighting for them,” Trump said last month during his meeting with the country’s ruler, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani. “He doesn’t want us to do a vicious blow to Iran. He says, ‘You can make a deal, you can make a deal.’”
Write to Stephen Kalin at stephen.kalin@wsj.com , Lara Seligman at lara.seligman@wsj.com and Summer Said at summer.said@wsj.com
