Israel-Iran ceasefire announced by Trump after Al Udeid Air Base attack in Qatar

Reuters reported that Qatar Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani had secured Tehran’s agreement to the US ceasefire proposal during a call with Iranian officials held after the strikes on the American base in Qatar on Monday, citing an official briefed on the negotiations.

The phone call came after Trump told Qatar’s emir that Israel had agreed to the ceasefire and asked for Doha’s help persuading Tehran to also agree to the ceasefire deal, the official said.

Hours earlier, three Israeli officials had signalled Israel was looking to wrap up its campaign in Iran soon and had passed the message on to the US. On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was “very, very close to completing” its goals.

A senior Iranian official told Reuters that Tehran had agreed to the U.S.-proposed ceasefire.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese welcomed Trump’s announced ceasefire. “We have consistently called for dialogue, diplomacy and de-escalation,” he said in a statement.

Earlier on Tuesday AEST, Trump described Iran’s missile attack as a “very weak response” that the US had anticipated, but thanked Iran for giving advance warning “which made it possible for no lives to be lost, and nobody to be injured”.

“Perhaps Iran can now proceed to peace and harmony in the region, and I will enthusiastically encourage Israel to do the same,” he said also thanking the Emir of Qatar, saying no Qataris were wounded by the Iranian strikes.

In his first comments on the Iranian retaliatory strikes on the airbase, Trump said of 14 missiles fired, 13 were “knocked down” and one was “set free” as it was not heading in a threatening direction.

“I am pleased to report that NO Americans were harmed, and hardly any damage was done,” Trump said in a post on TruthSocial.

“Most importantly, they’ve gotten it all out of their ‘system’, and there will, hopefully, be no further HATE.”

Qatar, however, said Iran had fired 19 missiles at US air base and one hit – but caused no casualties. The Qatari Defence Ministry earlier said its defence systems intercepted the attack.

Iran fired the missiles at Al Udeid early on Tuesday AEST, the regime’s first act of retaliation for the US bombing of its nuclear facilities at the weekend.

A defence official also confirmed the base was attacked “by short-range and medium-range ballistic missiles originating from Iran”.

People in Doha, Qatar’s capital, stopped and looked up as the missiles flew, and interceptors fired and struck at least one missile in the night sky.

In a statement, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps said the attack was a response to “the blatant military aggression by the criminal regime of the United States”.

It described the missile bombardment as “powerful and destructive”, said Iran “will never leave any aggression against its territorial integrity, sovereignty, or national security unanswered”.

Al Udeid – built on a flat stretch of desert about 30 kilometres southwest of Qatar’s capital, Doha – is one of the most significant American military assets in the region.

The sprawling facility hosts thousands of US service members and served as a major staging ground for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. At the height of both, it housed some 10,000 US troops, but that number dropped to about 8000 as of 2022.

Trump visited the base during his trip to Qatar and the Middle East last month, speaking to an audience of more than 1000 troops.

Last week, ahead of the US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, many of the transport planes, fighter jets and drones typically on Al Udeid’s tarmac dispersed. In a June 18 satellite photo taken by Planet Labs and analysed by The Associated Press, the airbase’s tarmac had emptied.

The US hit Iran’s nuclear assets with 75 projectiles on the weekend, including 14 so-called “bunker buster” bombs aimed at obliterating the country’s ability to develop nuclear weapons.

Iran said the number of missiles it fired matched the number of bombs the US dropped in its operation on the weekend, and that any future US attacks would also meet retaliation, in comments widely interpreted as an indication Tehran was not planning any further action at this stage.

The statement from Iran’s Supreme National Security Council also noted the attack on the US base took place away from populated areas and posed no threat to Qatar, “our friendly and brotherly country”.

US media reported Iran gave Qatar notice of the impending operation. The Iranian attacks came shortly after Qatar closed its airspace.

Just before the explosions, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on the social media platform X: “We neither initiated the war nor wanted it, but we will not leave the aggression against [Iran] unanswered.”

With Reuters, AP

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