WASHINGTON/TEL AVIV/ISTANBUL, June 24 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump accused both Israel and Iran of violating a ceasefire on Tuesday hours after he announced it, expressing particular frustration with Israel which had announced major new strikes on Tehran.
“Israel. Do not drop those bombs. If you do it it is a major violation. Bring your pilots home, now!” Trump wrote on Truth Social shortly after he left the White House for a trip to a NATO summit in The Hague.
Before boarding, he told reporters he was “not happy” with either side for violating the truce, particularly with Israel.
“I’ve got to get Israel to calm down now,” Trump said as he left the White House. “Israel, as soon as we made the deal, they came out and they dropped a load of bombs, the likes of which I’ve never seen before, the biggest load that we’ve seen.”
Iran and Israel had been fighting “so long and so hard that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing,” he said before turning away from cameras and heading to his helicopter.
Earlier, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz had said he had ordered the military to mount new strikes on targets in Tehran in response to what he said were Iranian missiles fired in a “blatant violation” of the ceasefire.
Iran denied launching any missiles and said Israel’s attacks had continued for an hour and a half beyond the time the ceasefire was meant to start.
Despite the initial violations, in both countries, the wider Middle East and around the world there was palpable sense of relief that a path out of war had been charted, 12 days after Israel launched it with a surprise attack, and two days after Trump joined in with strikes on Iranian nuclear targets.
“We’re happy, very happy. Who mediated or how it happened doesn’t matter. The war is over. It never should have started in the first place,” Reza Sharifi, 38, heading back to Tehran from Rasht on the Caspian Sea where he had relocated with his family to escape strikes on the capital, told Reuters by telephone.
Arik Daimant, a software engineer in Tel Aviv, said: “Regrettably, it’s a bit too late for me and my family, because our house back here was totally destroyed in the recent bombings last Sunday. But as they say: ‘better late than never’, and I hope this ceasefire is a new beginning.”
Trump had announced the ceasefire with a post on Truth Social: “THE CEASEFIRE IS NOW IN EFFECT. PLEASE DO NOT VIOLATE IT!”
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