Barely hours after U.S president Donald Trump said he has brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, fresh crisis looms between the warring parties, who are sworn enemies.
This morning (Nigeria time), Israel said Iran had fired missiles into its territory, causing destruction and injuries -a charge Iran denied.
But in return, Israeli Defence Minister, Israel Katz, has ordered the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) to retaliate.
Katz said on Tuesday the country’s military will “respond forcefully” to what he said was Iran’s violation of the ceasefire, Reuters reports.
The directive followed an announcement by the military that it had detected missile launches from Iran towards Israel.
The Israeli military said it was working to shoot down Iranian missiles after detecting the launch.
Less than three hours earlier, Trump had said that the ceasefire was now in effect.
Katz said the military had now been instructed to carry out high-intensity operations against targets in Tehran.
He said:”In light of Iran’s blatant violation of the ceasefire declared by the President of the United States – through the launch of missiles toward Israel – and in accordance with the Israeli government’s policy to respond forcefully to any breach, I have instructed the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) … to continue high-intensity operations targeting regime assets and terror infrastructure in Tehran.”
However, Iran, today too, denied it launched missiles at Israel in the “last few hours”, after Israel accused it of doing so, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
The general staff of the Iranian army “denied the launch of missiles from Iran to the occupied territories (Israel) in the last few hours”, state television reported.
