Israel and Iran strike each other for first time since ceasefire
The strike came after Iran launched missiles at Israel on Sunday in retaliation for Israel hitting Lebanese targets over the weekend - despite Trump urging Netanyahu to refrain from strikes in Lebanon
Highlights:
- Israel struck Iran's Mahshahr petrochemical plant and other military targets; first energy-site hit since April ceasefire.
- Iran fired missiles at Israel in retaliation for Israeli strikes in Lebanon.
- Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they hit an Israeli facility in Haifa, warning of economic consequences.
- Israel said it hit Iranian air defence systems in a large-scale strike.
- Trump said the escalation won't affect US-Iran peace talks.
Israel has said it hit the Mahshahr petrochemical plant in the southwest of Iran and struck military targets elsewhere in the country.
The strike came after Iran launched missiles at Israel on Sunday in retaliation for Israel hitting Lebanese targets over the weekend - despite Trump urging Netanyahu to refrain from strikes in Lebanon, according to a report by Axios.
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The Israeli attack is its first hit on an energy site inside Iran since a ceasefire came into force on 8 April.
Meanwhile, Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis pledged to stop Israel's maritime navigation in the Red Sea.
The Israeli military also on Monday activated aerial defence systems to repel a Houthi missile attack, the first since the ceasefire.
Hours before the escalation, Trump had said new strikes by Israel and Iran would not affect his administration's peace talks with Tehran.
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, Israel launched strikes in the Beirut area on Sunday for the first time since the US announced a truce plan for Lebanon last week.
Iran fired salvos of missiles at Israeli targets in retaliation, but Trump insisted that an agreement to end the wider war remained 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."
Iran says it has attacked an Israeli energy target
Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they had responded to what they described as an American-Israeli attack on the Mahshahr petrochemical plant by launching a missile strike on a similar plant in Haifa, a port city in northern Israel.
The Guards warned that further attacks on non-military and energy targets in the region could have consequences for the global economy, for which the United States would be responsible.
The Guards said Israel had started a "dangerous game" by targeting oil industry and civilian sites in Iran.
Israel says it struck Iranian strategic defence systems
The Israeli military said it had carried out a large-scale strike aimed at dismantling Iranian air defence capabilities.
"A short while ago, dozens of Israeli Air Force fighter jets, directed by the IDF Intelligence Directorate, completed a large-scale strike on strategic defence systems belonging to the Iranian terror regime," the military said in a statement.
It added that Iran had recently deployed defence systems across its territory as part of efforts to restore capabilities degraded by US-Israeli attacks before the ceasefire agreed in April.
"The strike led to the dismantling of these systems," the military said.
It was not immediately clear if these were new strikes or new details being released on attacks conducted earlier on Monday.
