{"id":213144,"date":"2026-06-09T00:08:56","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T00:08:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/israel-and-iran-exchange-strikes-as-middle-east-crisis-threatens-to-escalate-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T00:08:56","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T00:08:56","slug":"israel-and-iran-exchange-strikes-as-middle-east-crisis-threatens-to-escalate-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/israel-and-iran-exchange-strikes-as-middle-east-crisis-threatens-to-escalate-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel and Iran exchange strikes as Middle East crisis threatens to escalate – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Attacks raise fears of return to full-scale regional war and come after Trump says \u2018I call all the shots\u2019, not Netanyahu
The Israeli military has launched airstrikes on Iran after the Iranians fired missiles at northern Israel<\/a> in the first exchange of fire between the two countries since a ceasefire was reached on 8 April, raising fears of a return to a full-scale regional war in the Middle East.
Yemen\u2019s Iran-aligned Houthi rebels also fired at Israel and warned they would target Israeli-affiliated ships in the Red Sea, further escalating tension.
The Israeli strikes came in apparent defiance of Donald Trump, who told Israel\u2019s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a>, that he did not think Israel needed to respond further. He added that Netanyahu did not \u201ccall the shots\u201d.
In a message<\/a> on his Truth Social platform on Monday, Trump wrote: \u201cIsrael and Iran must immediately stop \u2018shooting\u2019. President DONALD J. TRUMP.\u201d
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 an obscenities-filled rebuke of Netanyahu in a phone call to the Israeli leader last week. However, Israel launched strikes on the Beirut area early on Sunday<\/a>, the first since the US announced a truce plan for Lebanon last week.
Iranian officials said they did not believe Israel launched its attacks on Iran without the approval of the US, rejecting any suggestion that Netanyahu had defied an instruction from Trump.
\u201cNo one believes that the Zionist regime would carry out any action without prior coordination and cooperation with the United States,\u201d said Esmaeil Baqaei, a foreign ministry spokesperson. \u201cIt is perfectly natural that the diplomatic process initiated to put an end to this imposed war would be affected.\u201d
The White House did not respond to messages about the Israeli strikes and whether they were done in coordination with the US.
Israel\u2019s attacks included a strike on an Iranian petrochemical complex. The Israeli military said it had also struck and dismantled Iran\u2019s defence systems deployed across several areas in the country.
Iranian state television reported the sound of explosions being heard in Isfahan, Karaj, Tabriz and Tehran. Officials offered no details on what had been struck, nor any information about the damage. Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said Israel used air-launched ballistic missiles in its attack on Monday morning, without elaborating.
The IRGC said it had targeted two military bases in Israel, describing the attacks as being part of Operation Nasr, or \u201cVictory\u201d. The Israeli army said it had worked to intercept a fresh wave of Iranian missiles. A series of explosions were heard in Jerusalem, where people took shelter. An Iranian missile fragment caused damage to several homes in a West Bank settlement, but no injuries were reported.
A senior US official told Associated Press that Trump had called Netanyahu to urge him not to retaliate immediately after the Iranian missile attack. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Trump believed he had convinced Netanyahu to wait.
The US president \u201cgot Bibi to hold off for the time being\u201d, the official said. The official would not offer any other details about the call, and there was no immediate comment from Netanyahu\u2019s office.
Speaking to the Financial Times before Israel hit Iran, Trump said he dictated terms to Netanyahu on how the war should be prosecuted. \u201cHe won\u2019t have any choice,\u201d Trump told the newspaper in a telephone interview, adding that he called \u201call the shots\u201d, not Netanyahu.
Houthi rebels announced a missile attack on Israel on Monday, the first since early April, and declared a ban on Israeli shipping in the Red Sea, raising the spectre of a return to significant disruption on the main trade route. \u201cWe declare a complete and total ban on Israeli maritime navigation in the Red Sea,\u201d said a statement from the Houthis\u2019 armed forces.
Trust between Iran and the US has been at a minimum for a long time, but if Tehran feels there is evidence the White House covertly endorsed the Israeli attack there is likely to be consequences for the stalled peace talks that Trump has claimed could end in a deal in days.
The Iranian negotiators have been under pressure internally from a small but vocal group of hardliners based in the parliament to abandon the talks altogether. Others claim specific aspects of the deal are too ambiguous and need to be tightened.
Ehsan Movahedian, an international relations specialist at Tehran University, pointed to videos he claimed proved the US did not just approve but was involved in Israel\u2019s attack on Iran.
\u2018Footage shows the launch of cruise missiles from the eastern Mediterranean toward Iran, meaning Trump has lied again,\u201d he wrote. \u201cAmerican warships are deployed in the eastern Mediterranean \u2026 Israel lacks the capability to launch long-range ship-fired cruise missiles.\u201d
Brent crude jumped $3.50 to $96.59 a barrel on Monday, while stocks in Asia, a region heavily dependent on oil imports, fell sharply in early trading.
Additional reporting by Associated Press and Reuters<\/em><\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Attacks raise fears of return to full-scale regional war and come after Trump says \u2018I call all the shots\u2019, not NetanyahuThe Israeli military has launched airstrikes on Iran after the Iranians fired missiles at northern Israel in the first exchange of fire between the two countries since a ceasefire was reached on 8 April, raising […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":213145,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-213144","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}