Iran’s foreign minister said his country will stop attacks on Israel if Tel Aviv ceased its “illegal aggression” as Donald Trump claimed the two sides had agreed a ceasefire.

The US president said on Monday night that the truce had averted the destruction of the Middle East, hours after Iran targeted a US airbase in Qatar in a missile attack (pictured above) that was revenge for American strikes on its nuclear enrichment sites.

Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s top diplomat, denied that Tehran has agreed to a ceasefire but said his country had “no intention to continue our response” after 5am (UK) when Mr Trump said the truce would come into force.

As that deadline approached, air raid sirens continued to sound in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv as the IDF said Iran has fired multiple waves of missiles.

JD Vance warned on Monday night that the US will launch more military strikes on Iran if it attempts to build a nuclear weapon.

The US vice-president said American airstrikes over the weekend had “obliterated” Tehran’s nuclear programme and urged it to “pursue the path of peace”.

Mr Vance told Fox News: “If Iran is desperate to build a nuclear weapon in the future, then they’re going to have to deal with a very, very powerful American military again.

“Our hope is that the lesson that the Iranians have learned here is: look, we can fly a bunker-buster bomb from Missouri to Iran completely undetected without landing once on the ground, and we can destroy whatever nuclear capacity you build up.”

✕ Close Possible missiles in Qatar after airspace closed

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US president Donald Trump has claimed that Israel and Iran have agreed to a “complete and total” ceasefire, set to begin around 12am Eastern time on Tuesday after both sides wind down their final offensive missions.

Israel has not yet publicly confirmed such a deal, while Iranian state TV has reportedly confirmed entrance into some kind of ceasefire agreement, though its exact terms are unclear.

Iran said as long as Israel stopped attacks by 4am (local time), Tehran would halt its offensive. However, nearly an hour after that deadline, Israel’s military sounded sirens and claimed Tehran fired a wave of ballistic missiles.

The apparent truce comes after Iran launched missile strikes on a US base in Qatar on Monday, part of its avowed revenge against Washington for bombing its facilities at Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz the previous day.

Following the retaliatory attack, Mr Trump posted on Truth Social: “Iran has officially responded to our Obliteration of their Nuclear Facilities with a very weak response, which we expected, and have very effectively countered.”

Under Trump’s timeline, proposed ceasefire would begin around now

Trump’s Truth Social post announcing the ceasefire between Iran and Israel was set to start “approximately 6 hours” from when he made the announcement earlier in the US night. That time has just passed.

“It has been fully agreed by and between Israel and Iran that there will be a Complete and Total CEASEFIRE (in approximately 6 hours from now, when Israel and Iran have wound down and completed their in progress, final missions!),” Trump wrote at 18:00 local time in Washington. It is now just past midnight.

Israel has not however publicly accepted the ceasefire proposal. Iran state TV announced a short while ago that a ceasefire had been “imposed” on Israel.

Three Israelis were killed in the latest missile barrage from Iran after promising to halt its strikes as Donald Trump announced a ceasefire between the nations.

Magen David Adom (MDA), Israel’s emergency service, confirmed three people were pronounced dead at the scene of a missile impact site in southern Israel.

‘MDA teams have pronounced the deaths of three people— Two people with moderate injuries have been evacuated to hospital, and approximately six people with mild injuries are being treated at the scene,’ the agency said.

The Israeli military warned of four Iranian barrages as the clock counts down to Trump’s ceasefire deadline.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi claimed the country had halted its retaliation in Israel at 4am local time, but the IDF said sirens were sounding in Israel shortly before 6am local time due to a missile launch from Iran.

Trump announced the ceasefire two weeks after they started exchanging missile strikes and two days after he bombed the Islamic Republic’s nuclear labs.

The president said the ’12 day war’ will ‘end’ in 24 hours, despite both nations warning of future strikes and just hours after Tehran attacked America’s largest military base in the Middle East.

He announced the ceasefire deal in a Truth Social post at 6.02pm ET, claiming it is set to go into effect in six hours once in-progress missions are completed.

Araghchi said there is no ceasefire agreement with Israel, but the country has ‘no intention to continue’ military operations if Israel stops attacks.

Trump broke his silence on Iran’s retaliatory strikes on Monday by demanding the end of the conflict in the Middle East and taunting the Ayatollah for his ‘very weak response.’

The president said on Truth Social that US forces ‘effectively countered’ Iran’s targeting of the Al Udeid Air Base in Doha, Qatar, two days after he bombed three Iranian nuclear sites.

Trump said that no Americans were harmed in Iran’s retaliatory strikes on Monday and declared, ‘they’ve got it all out of their system’, as he thanked Iran for giving early notice to allow the US to evacuate the base beforehand.

Trump addressed the escalations on Monday soon after Iran warned that its retaliation to Trump’s strikes on its nuclear facilities may not be over.

World leaders quickly condemned Iran’s strikes and expressed support to Qatar, which said that it has not ruled out retaliatory strikes of its own against Iran.

Live updates below

The supposed ceasefire that Trump announced tonight came after Iran signaled it no longer wanted to fight and Trump called Netanyahu and bluntly told him, “No more war,” a senior White House official said.

The phased-in ceasefire — in which Iran would stop firing for 12 hours before Israel would do the same for another 12 hours — was Trump’s idea to appease Israeli concerns that Iran would not hold up its end of the deal, the official said.

Iran’s foreign minister has denied that his country has agreed to a ceasefire.

Over the past 48 hours, Trump had been working the phones, according to the senior White House official. Another source familiar with the outreach told NBC News that Trump called the emir of Qatar earlier today to say he could get Israel to agree to a ceasefire if the emir could get Iran on board. Qatar’s prime minister then coordinated with Vice President JD Vance, and the prime minister spoke with the Iranians, the source said.

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