Israel Says Iran Fired Missiles at It, the First Since the April Ceasefire

Israel said Sunday that Iran has launched missiles at it, the first such bombardment since a fragile ceasefire took effect in early April, complicating mediation efforts for a deal to end the war, the Associated Press reported in a story carried by NPR. Iran’s state broadcaster confirmed the launch, and explosions were heard in northern Israel as sirens sounded in several areas. Israel’s military said it was working to intercept the missiles but that “the defense is not hermetic.”

Tehran had warned of retaliation after Israel struck Beirut’s southern suburbs on Sunday without warning, in defiance of a request days earlier from Washington to stand down, according to the AP. Israel called the strike a response to Hezbollah firing at northern Israel earlier in the day. Lebanon’s health ministry said the attack on a residential building killed two people and wounded 20. Ebrahim Rezaei, a spokesman for Iran’s parliamentary national security committee, had promised a “decisive and painful response,” the Irish Times reported.

The Beirut strike came a few days after the Lebanese and Israeli governments agreed to a ceasefire in U.S.-hosted talks, a deal Hezbollah rejected. Iran had warned that an attack on Beirut would renew full-scale war across the Middle East. It maintains that any agreement with the United States must also end the fighting in Lebanon. The White House did not comment on the Beirut strike, the AP said.

Mediation continued. Pakistan’s interior minister, Mohsin Naqvi, was in Tehran, delivering a message to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, from Pakistan’s army chief, according to Iran’s state-run IRNA agency. No details of the message were given. Naqvi met Iran’s interior minister late Saturday and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Sunday. Pakistan, with support from Qatar, Turkey and Egypt, says it is working to bridge differences between Washington and Tehran, and Egypt said its foreign minister and his Qatari counterpart discussed “proposed elements” of a possible U.S.-Iran agreement, without giving details.

President Trump did not comment on the war Sunday. In an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” taped Friday and aired Sunday, he said he would like to see a “more surgical attack on Hezbollah” and that he was “not demanding” that Lebanon be part of an overall ceasefire deal in the Iran war, the AP reported. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces elections later this year, wants to press ahead with Israel’s offensive in Lebanon until he believes Hezbollah no longer poses a threat.

Economic pressure from the war continues. Iran asserted its grip on the Strait of Hormuz, and the United States continued its blockade of Iranian ports, with shipments of oil, natural gas and fertilizer affected and the global economy in pain, the AP said.