Tensions Explode in Middle East as Israel Sends Missiles toward Iran after Netanyahu Defies Trump’s Warning not to Retaliate: ‘Get back to the Table’
By MELISSA KOENIG, US REPORTER and STEPHEN M. LEPORE, US SENIOR REPORTER and NOOR QURASHI, NEWS REPORTER and DAVID OLASEINDE
Israel launched a new wave of strikes on Iran just moments after a stern warning from President Trump ‘not to retaliate’ against Tehran.
The Israeli Defense Forces launched strikes on military sites in western and central Iran as state-run news reported explosions heard across the country.
‘The Israeli Air Force struck military targets belonging to the Iranian terror regime in western and central Iran a short while ago,’ the IDF said in a statement.
Iran retaliated this morning with waves of attacks, and explosions could be heard in central Israel as Israeli air defenses sought to intercept incoming Iranian fire.
The strikes came after after a series of missile attacks between Iran and Israel. Trump had called Benjamin Netanyahu and warned that he ‘calls all the shots.’
‘I am going to call Bibi [Netanyahu] right now and tell him not to retaliate,’ Trump was quoted as saying by Axios journalist Barak Ravid in a phone interview.
‘If Bibi strikes them back, it’s just gonna keep going like the last 47 years, or the last 3,000 years,’ he added.
Trump ordered both sides to stop the battle after Israel’s strikes this weekend on Beirut and Iran’s strikes on Northern Israel Sunday.
‘Each of them had their fun. Israel had its strike and Iran had its strike. We don’t need another one,’ Trump said.
Trump was insistent on forging a peace deal with Iran.
A streak of light illuminates the sky during a missile attack from Iran towards Israel today, as seen from Ashkelon
A projectile crosses the night sky over the West Bank city of Nablus today. Israel’s military reported air defence sirens sounded across northern Israel and central areas
Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted a neighbourhood in the southern Lebanese coastal city of Tyre today
‘It means [one of] two things,’ the President told The Financial Times about the breakout in fighting. ‘Number one, it would mean that possibly we would go in and take care of the rest of the place that we didn’t take care of militarily.
‘Or it would just mean that we would keep the blockade on Iran because the blockade has been probably more powerful than any attack that was ever made on that country.’
Trump described the first Iranian strikes on Israeli soil since April as ‘unhelpful’ to the peace process and called for calm between the two nations.
‘We’re very close,’ the president told Fox News about his progress on a landmark peace deal. ‘I would say an agreement would be signed on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday of this coming week. And now this takes place.’
Addressing Iran, he said: ‘You’ve shot your missiles, that’s enough. Get back to the table and make a deal.’
‘The Iranian strikes didn’t hurt anybody. Hopefully Israel is not going to retaliate,’ Trump added.
He told The Financial Times that Netanyahu did not have a choice about whether to accept the terms of the US deal with Iran.
‘He won’t have any choice,’ Trump told the FT. ‘I call the shots. I call all the shots. He [Netanyahu] doesn’t call the shots.’
He also told The New York Post that ‘things are going very well’ despite the chaos.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched strikes on ‘several targets’ at an Iranian petrochemical facility in in Mahshahr, in the south-west of the country.
The IDF and Iranian state media have both confirmed the attack, with Iranian outlets saying the complex near the northern coast of the Persian Gulf had been partially damaged.
Iranian media said more details on damage and ‘possible casualties’ will be announced later.
The attack comes a few days after the Lebanese and Israeli governments agreed to a ceasefire in US hosted talks.
Tehran had warned of retaliation after Israel struck Beirut’s southern suburbs today in defiance of Washington’s request days ago to stand down.
The strike on a residential building killed two people and wounded 20, Lebanon’s health ministry said.
Israel has now said it will retaliate against Iran over this evening’s attack – though Iran has vowed to respond with greater force.
Original source: https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15881653/Trump-explodes-Israel-Iran-missile-barrage.html