Israel, Iran trade fire despite Trump's call for restraint
Why this matters: local context for readers following news across Pakistan and the region.
Israel and Iran traded fire on Monday, seriously testing a fragile truce and threatening hopes for a deal to end the Middle East war. The new attacks, including a strike on an Iranian petrochemical complex, came hours after US President Donald Trump called on Israel to refrain from retaliating against Tehran’s missiles. AFP journalists in Jerusalem heard a series of explosions as they took shelter and the Israeli army said it worked to intercept a new wave of Iranian missiles. The retaliation followed Israel saying it fired on western and central Iran, tit-for-tat action against Tehran’s strikes on Sunday of 11 missiles, all of which were intercepted, with no casualties. Israel’s military and Iranian local media said Monday that Israel struck a petrochemical company in Mahshahr in southwestern Iran. Trump had sought to rein in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as Israel accused Tehran of making a “grave mistake”. Trump has also said new strikes by Israel and Iran would not affect his administration’s peace talks with Tehran, adding that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “doesn’t call the shots.” He has leaned on Israel to stop its attacks in Lebanon to allow room for a deal to end the wider war with Iran, including rebuking Netanyahu with obscenities in a phone call last week. However, earlier on Sunday, Israel launched strikes in the Beirut area for the first time since the US announced a truce plan for Lebanon last week. Iran fired a salvo of missiles at Israeli targets in retaliation, putting US-Iran peace talks at risk. But Trump insisted that an agreement to end the wider war remained well within reach. “It’s not going to have any impact on the deal,” Trump told the Financial Times. “I call the shots. I call all the shots. He (Netanyahu) doesn’t call the shots.” A few hours later, Israel’s defence forces said they had struck Iranian military targets. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said Israel used air-launched ballistic missiles in its attacks. “E