By Dov Lieber and Anat Peled
TEL AVIV -- Iran and Israel ended multiple exchanges of fire Monday but left open the possibility of resuming attacks that pressured President Trump's fragile Middle East ceasefire.
Trump had intervened in the violent, hourslong back-and-forth, saying Israel and Iran must immediately stop "shooting" and declaring that both countries wanted an immediate ceasefire.
Shortly afterward, Iran's military headquarters said it was ending operations by its armed forces against Israel, having "delivered a painful response" to that country.
"Should aggression and hostile actions continue -- including in southern Lebanon -- far more severe and forceful measures than before will follow, " it said, according to Iranian state media.
"Right now, the fire is on hold, because after we struck the terror regime in Tehran, it ceased attacking us," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a brief recorded video statement Monday. "Should the terror regime in Iran make the mistake of attacking us again -- we will respond with force," he added in the video, the first time he had publicly addressed the exchanges of fire with Iran.
In an early test of Iran's pledge, Israel carried out an airstrike in southern Lebanon on Monday, according to an Israeli military official and Lebanese state media. Hezbollah fired three rockets at Israeli troops in southern Lebanon afterward, some of which were intercepted on their way toward Israeli territory, Israel's military said.
The attacks and counterattacks, which began over the weekend and spilled into Monday, marked the first time Iran and Israel have targeted each other since a ceasefire brokered by the U.S. went into force in early April. They began with an Israeli strike on Beirut amid renewed fighting with the Iran-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah and threatened to escalate a conflict that has been largely contained since then, despite a series of lower-intensity skirmishes.
Israel's targets included a major Iranian petrochemical facility. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is responsible for protecting Iran's regime, called it a dangerous move and threatened to put energy facilities across the region at risk.
Iran fired missiles at Israel in several waves of attacks that the Israeli military said included close to 30 ballistic missiles. A senior U.S. official said that U.S. forces helped intercept the missiles. Alerts went off in Tel Aviv and explosions from missile intercepts could be heard over the city, after Israel followed through on a promise to counterattack despite initial warnings to hold off from Trump.
The president has been increasingly at odds with Netanyahu over the prosecution of the war. The Israeli leader came under pressure from his political allies and the Israeli opposition parties to respond to the Iranian missile barrage.
Israel said its air force struck military targets in central and western Iran in response, including air-defense systems and weapons, an Israeli official said. Other targets included Iranian missile-launch sites and non-energy infrastructure, Yechiel Leiter, Israel's ambassador to the U.S., said on social media.
Iranian state media said the targets included the Karoun Petrochemical Co., which was hit and damaged. The company is under U.S. sanctions as a source of funds for the Revolutionary Guard. Israel confirmed striking a petrochemical complex in the area.
Monday morning local time, Israel sounded alarms on multiple new waves of missiles launched from Iran and said it had intercepted a ballistic missile launched from Yemen by the Houthis, the Iran-backed U.S.-designated terrorist group that runs much of that country.
The Revolutionary Guard said it attacked airbases in southern Israel.
No major injuries were reported in those attacks.
Israel then retaliated again, sending dozens of warplanes in what it called a large-scale strike on Iranian air defenses. Iranian state media later reported the sound of air defenses in Tehran, and two residents of the city said explosions could be heard there.
"The Iranian regime made a serious mistake," an Israeli military spokesperson said late Sunday, adding that Israel would continue its operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The Iranian attack came after Tehran threatened to strike Israel and American bases in the Middle East in response to the attack on the Lebanese capital, the first time Israel had targeted Beirut since a ceasefire on that front was announced by the U.S. last week. Israel had agreed not to hit Beirut as long as Hezbollah didn't attack Israel proper, and agreed to a broader truce with Lebanon as long as the militant group stops fighting.
Netanyahu ordered the strike on what he said was a Hezbollah headquarters in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a stronghold of the militant group. Earlier, Israel's military said Hezbollah had fired rockets into northern Israel, which it intercepted.
Lebanon's Health Ministry said the strike killed two people and injured 20 more, including four women and four children.
On Sunday, Iran's top negotiator, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, said the U.S. blockade of Iranian shipping and what he described as the American green light for the Israeli strike in Lebanon "turn American and regime bases and assets in the region into legitimate targets."
The Israeli prime minister's office didn't respond to requests for comment on whether Israel's strike Sunday on Beirut had Washington's approval. Trump on Monday said on Truth Social that the blockade would remain in place until a final deal is reached. "Things should move quickly," he said.
In an interview on Fox News on Sunday, Trump said that the latest Israeli strikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon weren't coordinated with the U.S. But for weeks U.S. officials have said Washington supports Israel defending itself against attacks from the Iranian proxy.
Trump told NBC's "Meet the Press" that he supports "surgical" strikes against Hezbollah after telling Netanyahu last week that he wouldn't accept a large-scale Israeli assault on Beirut.
Trump held a tense call with Netanyahu last week and demanded that Israel halt strikes in Beirut, amid pressure from Tehran to end Israeli operations against Hezbollah, an Iranian ally.
Afterward, the State Department said the Israeli and Lebanese governments had agreed to a ceasefire as long as Hezbollah stopped attacks and pulled out of an area near the border with Israel. The deal called for Lebanon's army to take control of small parts of the area in a pilot project for taking it over.
Hezbollah and Iran swiftly rejected the deal, saying they would accept no truce until Israel had fully left Lebanon. Israel and Hezbollah have since continued to exchange fire.
The eruption of firing between Israel and Iran over Lebanon followed another exchange of fire over the weekend between U.S. and Iranian forces, the latest in a series of skirmishes over Iran's blockage of the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway on which a fifth of the world's oil supply depends and that has become a central stage for the conflict. Trump has been seeking to do a deal with Iran, which would unlock global access to the strait and end Tehran's ability to develop a nuclear weapon.
Write to Dov Lieber at dov.lieber@wsj.com and Anat Peled at anat.peled@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 08, 2026 12:30 ET (16:30 GMT)
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