News24 | Israel bombs Iran in defiance of Trump insisting Netanyahu ‘doesn’t call the shots’

Israel said it struck military targets in western and central Iran on Monday, even after US President Donald Trump reportedly told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to refrain from further attacks.

Hours earlier, Trump 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”.

Trump 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.

READ | Ceasefire in name only: Why powerful nations keep bombing and face no consequences

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.

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.

“Everyone has had enough of this maniacal Iranian regime,” Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Yechiel Leiter, said on X, adding that ⁠Iran had fired 11 ballistic missiles at Israel.

“No self-respecting country in the world would tolerate such an attack, and neither will Israel,” he said, adding that Israel was targeting Iran’s surface-to-surface missile launch sites and infrastructure facilities unrelated to the energy sector.

Iran fired 11 ballistic missiles at Israel today. Each one of those missiles can level an entire neighborhood and kill hundreds. No self-respecting country in the world would tolerate such an attack, and neither will Israel.Israel is now targeting Iranian surface-to-surface…

The latest hostilities drove oil prices up more than 3% in early trading on Monday, with benchmark Brent futures back above $96 a barrel.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they had targeted Ramat David air base, near Nazareth.

The Israeli military said it identified missiles launched from Iran and its defence systems had intercepted them.

As air raid sirens sounded in Tel Aviv, according to a Reuters witness, the Israeli military added it had identified the launch of a missile from Yemen toward its territory with aerial defence systems activated to intercept the threat.

The Is