Trump urges Israel and Iran to stop firing as strikes test ceasefire

Trump urged Israel and Iran to stop firing after new strikes threatened the Iran war ceasefire and raised fears of a wider regional conflict.

U.S. President Donald Trump called on Israel and Iran to immediately stop firing after the two countries traded strikes for the first time since the Iran war ceasefire began, a new exchange that threatened to unravel the truce.

Israel also struck central and western Iran early Monday after attacking Hezbollah targets in Beirut, NPR reported. In Lebanon, Iran has warned that Israeli strikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut would be considered a red line. NPR reported that Israel targeted an apartment building Sunday night, killing two people, as airstrikes continued to batter neighborhoods where some residents have remained despite the danger.

Trump’s public appeal came as the exchange put renewed pressure on U.S. efforts to keep the fighting from widening. CBS News reported that Trump told both sides to “immediately stop ‘shooting.’” Al Jazeera reported that Trump said he had urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to show restraint after Iran’s missile attack, but that Israel fired back anyway, raising questions about Washington’s leverage over Israel at a critical moment.

The available reports also differed in how much they said about the diplomatic track around the conflict. NPR reported that Trump defended his Iran policy in an NBC “Meet the Press” interview that aired Sunday and mentioned a potential peace agreement, but offered no details. A separate Fox News report, citing counterterrorism experts, framed earlier U.S.-Israeli action against Iran’s leadership as a precision operation paired with a U.S. “way out,” based on comments by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi about the strike that killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

For now, the immediate question is whether Trump’s call for both sides to stop firing can hold the ceasefire together. The reports described the truce as threatened, fraying or crumbling, but did not establish that it had formally ended.