After 11 days of war, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire Monday evening in the hopes of ending the direct conflict between Israel, the U.S., and Iran—but both Israel and Iran reportedly continued exchanging attacks on Tuesday.
Israel’s military says it intercepted another 15 Iranian drones overnight, hours after the deadline Trump announced. And Israeli strikes targeted at least one radar site near the Iranian capital of Tehran, Reuters reports, citing Israeli army radio and locals in Tehran. Iranian officials said Israel’s latest strikes came in at least three “waves” beginning around 9 a.m. local, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Iran’s overnight missiles killed at least four people and wounded eight others in Israel, the Associated Press reports, citing Israeli rescue services. However, Iranian military officials denied being behind those attacks, state-run Tasnim news agency reported.
Israel’s reax: “In light of the severe violation of the ceasefire carried out by the Iranian regime, we will respond with force,” Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said in a brief statement on social media. Indeed, the New York Times reports, “In Tehran, residents said they endured a night of the heaviest airstrikes since the war began June 13.”
Trump announced his ceasefire five hours after Iran launched 19 missiles at a U.S. military base in Qatar, which at least one observer said was a more “symbolic” than retaliatory response to American bombs dropped on three Iranian enrichment sites over the weekend. The Journal described the Qatar barrage as a “telegraphed attack that caused no injuries or deaths,” as 18 of the 19 missiles were allegedly intercepted. Analysts at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War observed that Iran’s attack on the U.S. base in Qatar appeared designed to prevent “further escalation.”
Trump’s abrupt ceasefire “caught even some of [his] own top administration officials by surprise,” and “within three hours of Mr. Trump’s announcement, there were fresh attacks from Israel against Iran,” the Times reported. According to Trump, Iran was expected to cease attacks first beginning at midnight, while Israel would stop its attacks beginning at noon Tuesday—with an official end to the war slated for midnight Wednesday.
Also worth noting: “None of the parties to the cease-fire has revealed the terms of the deal,” the Journal reports.
Update: Trump was clearly exasperated Tuesday morning, telling reporters Israel’s war with Iran has been going on “so long and so hard that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.” Reuters has more.
Developing: After teasing regime change in Iran over the weekend, Trump now says he’s not interested in deposing Iran’s leader. “I don’t want it. I’d like to see everything calm down as quickly as possible,” he said en route to the annual NATO summit hosted this year in The Hague, Netherlands. “Regime change takes chaos and ideally, we don’t want to see so much chaos,” Trump said.
A note on regime change: “Unspecified Iranian leaders have reportedly developed a contingency plan to govern Iran without [leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei] in the event that Khamenei is killed or informally sidelined,” ISW wrote in its Monday evening assessment, citing The Atlantic. “These efforts suggest that senior officials are highly concerned about the stability of the regime and seek to ensure regime survival in the event that Khamenei is killed or removed,” ISW writes.
In new podcasts, arms control scholar Jeffrey Lewis sat down with Dmitri Alperovitch on Monday to discuss the Iranian nuclear program and the merits of Israel’s preventive war. Catch that on YouTube.
Meanwhile in Gaza, Israel’s military killed 40 more Palestinians on Tuesday, and more than 140 others were reportedly “injured from crowds who tried to reach a nearby aid distribution centre of the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation,” Reuters reports.
Also: Israel has also “weaponized” food for civilians in Gaza, and that could constitute a war crime, the U.N. human rights office said on Tuesday. “The weaponisation of food for civilians, in addition to restricting or preventing their access to life-sustaining services, constitutes a war crime and, under certain circumstances, may constitute elements of other crimes under international law,” U.N. human rights spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan said Tuesday in Geneva. “Desperate, hungry people in Gaza continue to face the inhumane choice of either starving to death or risk being killed while trying to get food,” he added. Reuters has more.
Additional reading:
Welcome to this Tuesday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter dedicated to developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 2023, Russia’s paramilitary Wagner Group launched a short-lived insurrection against Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Almost exactly two months later, Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin would die in a mysterious plane crash.
Trump 2.0
Developing: The State Department appears to have changed rules to make it easier to fire its Foreign Service staff, tweets Politico’s Nahal Toosi off this State webpage.
The Supreme Court has at least temporarily taken away immigrants’ right to due process, which permits the Trump administration to deport people to countries that are not where they originated. The one-paragraph order (PDF) issued Monday removes “for now a court order requiring they get a chance to challenge the deportations,” the Associated Press reports.
What’s going on: “Typically, before a noncitizen may be removed from the United States, they are entitled to a hearing before an immigration judge,” Vox explains. “The immigration judge will inform the person facing deportation which countries they might be sent to, allowing the noncitizen to object to any countries where they fear they may be tortured.” However, the Trump administration changed the deportees’ destination countries, “and the immigrants have not been given a meaningful opportunity to object,” Vox reports. “Using this loophole, the Trump administration seeks to deport them without a new hearing.” That process can now proceed while a lawsuit challenging it proceeds in the lower courts.
Bigger picture: “The conservative-majority [Supreme Court] has sided with Trump in other immigration cases…clearing the way for his administration to end temporary legal protections affecting a total of nearly a million immigrants,” AP reports. Read more, here.
Related:
- “ICE detains Marine Corps veteran’s wife who was still breastfeeding their baby,” AP reports. “Even as Marine Corps recruiters promote enlistment as protection for families lacking legal status, directives for strict immigrant enforcement have cast away practices of deference previously afforded to military families, immigration law experts say.”
- “Immigrant father of three Marines is violently detained, injured by federal agents, son says.” LA Times: “Video of a landscaper being taken down, pinned and repeatedly punched by masked federal agents in Orange County has gone viral…”
- Florida is using FEMA money to build what some are calling an “Alligator Alcatraz” detention center for migrants in the Everglades. More from DHS, the New York Times, or CNN.
- Meanwhile, “For a second time, FEMA rejects WA request for bomb cyclone disaster aid,” the Washington State Standard reported Friday.
NATO summit
New poll sees decline in GOP support for NATO, though support among all Americans remains high. The Chicago Council released the results of its latest public-opinion poll on the eve of this year’s NATO summit, which got underway today in the Hague. Among its findings:
- A solid majority of Americans think US alliances are beneficial to the United States and its allies (61%, up from 51% in 2024) or mostly benefit the United States alone (11% compared to 13% in 2024).
- Three in four (74%) favor maintaining or increasing the US commitment to NATO. While majorities across political affiliations express support, the difference between Democrats (91%) and Republicans (59%) on the question has reached an all-time high in Council polling dating back to 1974.
- Nearly six in 10 overall say NATO makes the United States safer (57%) compared to just 8 percent who say less safe (33% say it makes no difference).
- Republican hesitation toward alliances could be linked to perceptions of limited freedom to maneuver. Only 38 percent of Republicans believe the United States should make international decisions collectively with its allies if this means Washington might have to compromise. A majority of the overall public, however, agrees with this tradeoff (60%).
Industry
Stephen Miller and other U.S. officials have financial stakes in Palantir, a contractor for ICE and several other federal agencies. “Over a dozen Trump appointees in the White House and Department of Homeland Security have owned stock in the controversial company raising privacy concerns across the political spectrum,” POGO reports.
Oracle seeks to give defense startups a hand, and maybe reap rewards on the back end. At its defense tech summit last week, Oracle announced a new defense ecosystem designed to give startups a running start in competing for defense contracts, with access to secure spaces, training and certifications, sales support, and help navigating defense acquisition and cybersecurity standards. Defense One’s Lauren C. Williams has more, here.
And lastly: Qatar buys counter-drone tech from a U.S. not-for-profit. SRC announced Monday that Doha has placed the first foreign order for the U.S. Army’s Fixed Site–Low, Slow, Small Unmanned Aircraft System Integrated Defeat System, or LIDS. No more details were given in the press release.
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