RIYADH/DUBAI: US President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire between Iran and Israel hours after Tehran attacked a US base in Qatar in retaliation for US strikes on military sites in Iran over the weekend.
The US president said both sides had agreed to a staggered cessation of hostilities until there is an end to the conflict.
Iran will begin observing the ceasefire first, with Israel watching if Tehran complies for the following 12 hours, if it does, then Tel Aviv will join in, bringing to an end what Trump is calling a “12 Day War”.
The ceasefire will start at 7 a.m. Saudi time.
The deal allows for a six hour window for both sides to wrap up ongoing operations, the president explained in a Truth Social post on Monday evening.
The president wrote: “This is a War that could have gone on for years, and destroyed the entire Middle East, but it didn’t, and never will! God bless Israel, God bless Iran, God bless the Middle East, God bless the United States of America, and GOD BLESS THE WORLD!”
Around the same time as Trump made the announcement, several loud explosions were heard in Iran’s Karaj and Rajai Shahr, according to local media.
A senior Iranian official confirmed to Reuters that Tehran is agreeing to Qatar mediated, US-proposed ceasefire with Israel.
Israeli strikes on Iran have killed at least 950 people and wounded 3,450 others, a human rights group said Monday.
The Washington-based group Human Rights Activists offered the figures, which covers the entirety of Iran. It said of those dead, it identified 380 civilians and 253 security force personnel being killed.
Human Rights Activists, which also provided detailed casualty figures during the 2022 protests over the death of Mahsa Amini, crosschecks local reports in the Islamic Republic against a network of sources it has developed in the country.
Iran has not been offering regular death tolls during the conflict and has minimized casualties in the past. On Saturday, Iran’s Health Ministry said some 400 Iranians had been killed and another 3,056 wounded in the Israeli strikes.
