Trump urges Israel and Iran to stop strikes as ceasefire talks continue

Donald Trump urged Israel and Iran to stop striking each other as the latest round of fire risked blowing up a fragile diplomatic opening. The appeals came after Israel and Iran traded strikes late Sunday and early Monday, the first direct exchange of fire since a ceasefire took hold in April 2026.

Trump said both countries were looking to “do an immediate ceasefire” and that final negotiations on “peace” were still moving forward. He also said the new strikes would not derail his administration’s talks with Tehran and insisted that Benjamin Netanyahu “doesn’t call the shots,” a line aimed at showing the White House still had room to steer events despite the battlefield escalation.

The stop-start diplomacy stood in sharp contrast with the military reality on the ground. Iran’s military announced it was halting offensive operations against Israel after the exchange of fire, while an Israeli official said Trump had spoken with Netanyahu on Monday. That sequencing mattered: the fighting had already become the biggest escalation in weeks and the worst direct confrontation since the April truce, raising doubts about whether the ceasefire talks were keeping pace with events or lagging behind them.

The flare-up also carried broader regional and economic risk. CNN reported that the wider war has included brinkmanship over the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint that remains critical to global energy flows, while Trump has recently said the United States does not need “boots on the ground” in Iran. He has also been pressing Israel to curb attacks in Lebanon while negotiations with Tehran continue, underscoring how the administration is trying to contain multiple fronts at once.

International pressure has moved in the same direction, at least publicly. TIME reported that world leaders condemned the renewed hostilities and urged restraint and a return to negotiations. Reuters-linked reporting also said Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed missiles fired at Israel from Yemen, a reminder that the conflict could spread beyond the two main adversaries even if both sides are signaling a pause.

The confrontation sits atop decades of distrust. CNN’s timeline traces U.S.-Iran tensions back to the 1953 coup in Iran, the 1979 revolution and the hostage crisis, while AP-linked reporting says the 2026 war phase began after U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran on Feb. 28, 2026. Initial talks in Pakistan in April failed to produce a peace deal, making the latest strike exchange a test of whether Trump’s diplomatic push can survive the region’s continuing military pressure.