New Delhi: The US president, Donald Trump, has said he threatened to abandon Israel in its war with Iran during a phone call with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, forcing Tel Aviv to abandon its airstrikes on Tehran following the resumption of fighting on Sunday. Trump, quoted by an Israeli television channel, said he asked Netanyahu to be “very careful” if he continued his attacks on Iran.
Meanwhile, Iran warned that it would not agree to a peace deal with the US unless Israel stopped its attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon. Iran’s top negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Glalibaf, accused the US and Israel of “violating in the field” the ceasefire they agreed to “on paper.” Galibaf, who is also the Iranian parliament speaker, said Tehran had “disrupted the equation of a ceasefire on paper and its repeated violations in the field.” He suggested, “As long as you lack the genuine will to build trust, Iran’s response will be exactly this.”
The US president told the television channel that he had tried to limit Israel’s retaliation on Iran after several nations requested him to bring pressure on Netanyahu, noting that at least five nations had called him, urging him to intervene. “I tried to limit the size of the Israeli response to Iran after five countries asked me to pressure Netanyahu,” Trump said, as he attempted to prevent escalation in the resumed war, even as he was confident of a peace deal with Tehran.
“I told Bibi (Netanyahu), you better be very careful with what you do, because you might soon be left alone against Iran,” Trump reportedly told the Israeli prime minister in the phone call soon after Israel retaliated to Tehran’s missile attack on its territory in response to Tel Aviv’s missile strikes on Beirut on Sunday. He said Netanyahu told him, late on Sunday, that Israel reserved its rights to defend itself from Iran and would respond forcefully to any further attacks. The Israeli prime minister had gone on television to confirm what he told Trump about defending Israel with a disproportionate response to Iranian missile strikes.
Israel-Iran stop fighting after Trump threat
“Israel has a full right to self-defence, and we are exercising it as required. I say this to you, just as I say it with appreciation and respect in my good conversations with my friend President Trump,” Netanyahu said in his televised address to Israeli citizens. Soon after the Trump-Netanyahu phone call, both Israel and Iran called off their military exchanges on Monday, as the US president publicly called for a stop to the “shooting”. Both sides, though, kept their options to respond open and resume the war whenever necessary.
The US had joined Israel in attacking Iran on February 28, when the latest West Asian war began. The airstrikes came after the American negotiations, held at multiple locations, to limit Tehran’s nuclear programme failed to yield results in late February. The warring sides had announced a ceasefire on April 8, after striking each other with missiles and drones for over a month. They held the only direct talks for a peace settlement in Islamabad in mid-April. Those direct talks, mediated by Pakistan, also failed. Since then, the two sides have been communicating indirectly to achieve peace.
The fresh exchange of missile attacks happened on Sunday after Iran hit Israel with missiles, in response to Tel Aviv’s airstrikes on Beirut against Iran-backed armed groups. Israel responded with its own missile strikes on Iran soon after. The development had threatened to undo the ceasefire agreement between the two sides that had held since April 8.
In his first public remarks since, Netanyahu sternly warned the Iranian leadership. “At the moment, the fire has ceased, because after we struck the terror regime in Tehran, it stopped attacking us. If the terror regime in Iran makes the mistake of attacking us again, we will respond with force,” Netanyahu said. He rejected Iran’s bid to create a “new equation”, linking Israel’s military operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon to the peace deal. “They thought they could fire at Israel from Lebanese and Iranian territory, and that we would not respond…That did not happen, and it will not happen. Not on my watch,” he asserted.
Yemen’s Houthis attack Israel
Meanwhile, Iran-backed Houthis, based in neighbouring Yemen, announced they had struck Israel in a missile attack on Monday. The armed group also declared a ban on Israeli shipping in the Red Sea, where the Houthis have previously struck cargo vessels and warships at will. The Houthis’ threat immediately raised concerns over the safety of the shipping lanes in the Red Sea, a major cargo route now facing disruption.
During the latest Israel-Hamas war that began in late 2023, Houthis have harassed cargo ships in the vital sea lanes of the Red Sea, forcing major shipping companies to take a lengthy detour via the southern tip of Africa to avoid the armed group’s rocket attacks. The Houthis’ threat to the Red Sea shipping lanes comes as the maritime trade through the Strait of Hormuz has witnessed disruptions since the West Asia war began on February 28, when Iran announced a blockade of the shipping route that is key to energy trade.
“We declare a complete and total ban on Israeli maritime navigation in the Red Sea,” the Houthis’ armed force announced in a statement. “We consider all enemy movements to be legitimate military targets for our armed forces from the moment this statement is issued,” it said. Following the US-Israel airstrikes on Iran in late February, the Houthis announced they were joining the war in support of Tehran. The armed group also fired missiles at Israel during the West Asia ceasefire since April 8, announcing that they “launched a missile barrage targeting sensitive Israeli enemy targets.” They also claimed the missile strikes “achieved their objectives with precision.”
The Israeli military wrote on Telegram that it “has identified the launch of a missile from Yemen toward Israeli territory, aerial defence systems are operating to intercept the threat.” But it did not say if it would retaliate against the Houthis on Yemen territory. The Yemen-based Houthis and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah are part of the Iran-supported “Axis of Resistance” opposed to Israel and the United States.