US President Donald Trump told reporters on June 24, 2025, that both Israel and Iran broke the ceasefire deal he had announced earlier that day, and he expressed frustration with Israel’s decision to carry out further air strikes, urging the country to stop bombing and to bring its pilots home immediately reuters.com. He said that any attacks after agreeing to pause the violence would undermine efforts to keep people safe and would force him to rethink his approach to brokering peace. Trump also insisted that the United States did not plan to push for regime change in Iran, noting that past attempts had only led to more chaos and made it harder to work toward a lasting solution reuters.com.
Shortly after Trump’s remarks, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz announced that he had ordered “intense strikes” on targets in Tehran, accusing Iran of firing missiles at Israel’s territory in a blatant breach of the truce reuters.com. Katz said that he would not allow the Iranian military to act without facing consequences, and he claimed his strikes aimed to prevent further threats to Israeli cities. Iran pushed back against this claim, with its foreign ministry stating that no missiles had been fired at Israel after the ceasefire began, and warning that any new Israeli action would meet a firm reply aljazeera.com.
On Monday, Iran launched more than a dozen ballistic missiles at the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, where U.S. forces are stationed, in response to U.S. air strikes on what Washington called Iranian nuclear sites over the previous weekend en.wikipedia.org. Qatar and U.S. air defences intercepted most of the missiles, and officials reported no casualties or serious damage. Iran said it carried out the attack to defend its soil against strikes that it described as unlawful and aimed at civilian infrastructure. The United States said its aircraft had hit three nuclear facilities, causing severe damage but no direct loss of life, under an operation code-named Operation Midnight Hammer en.wikipedia.org.
Since June 13, when Israel began a major bombing campaign on more than one hundred sites in Tehran and other cities, Iranian officials estimate that over four hundred people, including thirteen children, have died and more than three thousand have been wounded by Israeli attacks en.wikipedia.org. In turn, Iran’s missile and drone strikes against Israel have killed at least twenty-four people and injured dozens more, according to Israeli authorities . These numbers highlight how quickly the situation has escalated from targeted blows to a full-scale exchange of fire that risks dragging the wider region into a deeper crisis.
Regional leaders and international bodies have urged both countries to step back from the brink. The European Union, the United Kingdom and France all called for calm and for parties to return to diplomatic talks, while the International Atomic Energy Agency asked Iran to allow inspectors back into its nuclear sites to restore some measure of trust . Yet political pressures run high on both sides, and military leaders appear determined to show strength rather than patience.
Personal analysis
I think the cycle of strikes and counter-strikes shows how fragile a pause in war can be when leaders let their armies act first and their diplomats follow later, and I feel that unless both sides keep talking even while they hold back their weapons, they will only swap more blows and weaken any chance for lasting calm. In my view, true progress needs people on all sides to resist making threats on the battlefield and to use talks to solve real problems before more civilians get hurt.
