Israel said on Monday it hit a petrochemical plant in Iran’s southwest, along with strikes elsewhere on military targets, after U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to refrain from further attacks.
In the first hit on an energy site inside Iran since the April 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.
Hours earlier, Trump said new strikes by Israel and Iran would not affect his administration’s peace talks with Tehran, adding that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “doesn’t call the shots.”
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, earlier on Sunday Israel launched strikes in the Beirut area for the first time since the U.S. announced a truce plan for Lebanon last week.
Iran fired salvos of missiles at Israeli targets in retaliation, putting U.S.-Iran peace talks at risk. But Trump insisted that an agreement to end the wider war remained well 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’s Revolutionary Guards said Israel used air-launched ballistic missiles in its attacks.
Iran had fired 11 ballistic missiles at Israel, its ambassador to the United States, 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 said, adding, “No self-respecting country in the world would tolerate such an attack, and neither will Israel.”
The latest hostilities drove oil prices up more than 3% on Monday, with benchmark Brent futures back above $96 a barrel.
In a brief statement, Israel’s defence forces said, “The Israeli Air Force struck several targets at the petrochemical complex in Mahshahr.”
No further details of Monday’s damage were immediately available. Iran’s state media have said enemy projectiles have hit five production lines at the plant since the Iran war began on February 28.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they 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.
“The missile alerts sounded at 6 a.m. in Jerusalem,” U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee said on X, adding, “The mothership of Satan is in Tehran.”
The Israeli military said it had activated aerial defence systems to intercept a missile it identified as having been launched from Yemen, in an attack that would be Yemen’s first on Israel since the ceasefire.
With Reuters report
