Israel Fires Back at Iran after Missile Attacks

Israel said it struck several military targets in Iran, retaliating against missile attacks by Tehran despite President Donald Trump’s call for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to refrain from hitting back.

The Israel Defense Forces said it struck targets in western and central Iran, with Iranian state media reporting multiple explosions in Tehran. A US official said the Israel strikes were “relatively limited” in their scope, Axios reported.

The IDF said earlier it had identified and intercepted missiles fired from Iran, adding that emergency services reported no casualties.

The exchange is one of the most serious tests of a ceasefire that took effect on April 8 to halt fighting involving the US, Israel and Iran. It comes as the US and Iran appear to be making little progress toward an interim agreement to end the war, even as Trump has repeatedly said a deal is near.

The tit-for-tat strikes risk leading to further escalation. After Israel’s latest attack on Iran, Saudi Arabia sounded a missile alert in an area home to the Prince Sultan Airbase, which hosts US forces, the Associated Press reported.

Oil jumped after the renewed fighting, with Brent crude rising 3 percent to above $96 a barrel. The US dollar, the haven of choice since the Middle East conflict began, gained against all of its Group-of-10 peers. 

In a phone call with Netanyahu on Sunday, Trump told the Israeli leader not to retaliate against Iran’s missile attack and to allow more time for diplomacy, Axios reported, citing a senior US official and an Israeli source familiar with details of the call. 

Separately, the US president told the Financial Times that his Israeli counterpart would have to accept any deal the US reaches with Iran. “I call the shots. I call all the shots,” he said. Netanyahu “doesn’t call the shots.”

The latest strikes follow an escalation between Israel and Hezbollah. Early Sunday, the Lebanese militia attacked targets in northern Israel, prompting a strike by the Israeli military in Beirut’s southern suburbs, killing two people and injuring 11.

Mohsen Rezaee, a military adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, told the semi-official Iranian Students’ News Agency that the missile launches toward Israel was a “warning to cease their hostile actions” in Lebanon.

Hezbollah last week rejected a US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon announced by the State Department just hours before. Iran has demanded a ceasefire in Lebanon before an accord can be reached with the US.

Israel used air-launched ballistic missiles to attack several targets inside Iran early Monday, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said in a statement, state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported. Blasts were heard in the city of Karaj west of Tehran, the country’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported. 

In Washington, Trump’s team is floating a plan to steer Iranian assets frozen in the US toward helping Persian Gulf allies rebuild from damage inflicted by the Islamic Republic.

Trump said in an interview broadcast Sunday that he would not unfreeze any Iranian assets or lift any sanctions against Iran as part of an initial deal.

“If they behave, if they do a good job, we start talking” about releasing the assets, Trump told Kristen Welker in the interview taped Friday for NBC’s Meet the Press.

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi poured cold water on the idea, saying in a post on X that his country’s assets “are neither Washington’s war spoils nor a fund for paying its allies.” He also noted that Iran is still demanding “full compensation” for its own damages from the war Israel and the US started on Feb. 28.

Here’s more on the war:

• Israel said it canceled school across the country for Monday.
• Several rockets breached Jordanian airspace Sunday evening following a “renewed escalation” in the region, Minister of Government Communication Mohammad Momani said in a post on X.