Israel and Iran trade fire despite Trump's call for restraint

TEHRAN: Israel said on Monday (Jun 8) it hit a petrochemical plant in Iran's southwest, along with strikes elsewhere on military targets, after US President Donald Trump reportedly told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to refrain from further attacks.

The escalation complicates US-led efforts to broker a broader deal with Iran, driving oil prices up by nearly 5 per cent, with benchmark Brent futures back above US$97 a barrel.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps blamed the US for the latest exchange of fire with Israel and said further attacks on non-military and energy targets would have consequences for the global economy.

The IRGC said that in retaliation, they had launched a missile attack on a similar plant in the Israeli city of Haifa.

In the first hit on an energy site inside Iran since the Apr 8 ceasefire, Israel said it struck targets at the Mahshahr petrochemical complex, while a provincial official told Iran's semi-official Fars news agency parts of the plant were damaged.

The Israeli military later said it had also carried out a large-scale strike on Iranian defence systems to dismantle air defence capabilities that Tehran had been deploying.

Iranian media reported the sound of explosions in Tehran on Monday, and the semi-official Mehr news agency said air defences had shot down a drone over the capital. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis pledged in a statement to stop Israel's maritime navigation in the Red Sea, and said it was behind the first missile attack on Israel since the ceasefire, which spurred Israel to activate aerial defence systems.

"I CALL THE SHOTS": TRUMP

Trump said on Sunday the new strikes by Israel and Iran would not affect the US peace talks with Tehran.

Trump has leaned on Israel to stop its attacks on Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon to allow room for a deal to end the wider war with Iran, including rebuking Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with obscenities in a phone call last week.

However, earlier on Sunday Israel launched strikes on Hezbollah strongholds in the Beirut area 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."

A few hours later, Israel's defence forces said they had struck Iranian military targets.

Iran had fired 11 ballistic missiles at Israel, the Israeli ambassador to Washington, Yechiel Leiter, said on X, adding, "Everyone has had enough of this maniacal Iranian regime."

Israel was targeting Iran's surface-to-surface missile launch sites and infrastructure facilities, he added.

In a brief statement, Israel's defence forces said they struck several targets at Mahshahr.

Authorities there ordered all employees to evacuate, but there were no injuries and damage was being assessed, Iran's state media reported, adding that five production lines at the complex had been hit since the Iran war began on Feb 28.

The IRGC said it 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.

TRUMP URGED NETANYAHU TO HOLD OFF FURTHER STRIKES

Trump spoke with Netanyahu by telephone from his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, for a little less than half an hour on Sunday, an Israeli official said, without giving details.

The White House and the Israeli prime minister's office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Trump told Netanyahu during the call to refrain from further strikes because "we are close to doing something good in terms of a deal," according to a US official quoted by Axios.

Since the start of the talks, Israel has kept up attacks in Lebanon in a conflict with Hezbollah that Israeli officials insist should be treated separately from any Iran ceasefire.

Tehran has long said any peace deal with the U.S. would depend on a ceasefire also holding in Lebanon, which Israel invaded in March in pursuit of Hezbollah fighters who fired across the border in solidarity with Tehran.

Iran's chief peace negotiator, Parliamentary Speaker Mohammed Baqer Qalibaf, said US bases and Israeli assets were legitimate targets because of hostile acts, including the "violation of agreements over Lebanon".

TRUMP WANTS NO ATTACKS IN LEBANON

Israel has never halted its Lebanon campaign, which has killed thousands of people and driven hundreds of thousands more from their homes.

Hezbollah, which kept out of truce talks, has also continued its attacks and says it will not give up its weapons unless Israel halts its attacks and withdraws from Lebanon.

The wider war has been stalled since the US and Israel paused full-scale warfare with Iran in early April. Tehran has blocked most shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, which carried a fifth of the world's crude oil and liquefied natural gas before the war.

Washington has imposed its own blockade of Iranian ports.

Though Washington and Tehran have said they are close to a preliminary deal to reopen the strait, they have still traded strikes, with escalations in recent days that included attacks on nearby Arab states hosting US bases.

Trump has said any deal to end the war must prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Tehran's demands include the lifting of US and international sanctions, the release of billions of dollars in frozen assets and recognition of its sway over the strait.