Israel-Iran ceasefire holds but doubts remain over US claims

US President Donald Trump claimed to have brokered a peace deal between Israel and Iran yesterday. A lot has gone down since then, including a meltdown by the president and a brief blame game played by Israel and Iran.

Early on Tuesday, Trump announced on Truth Social that the US had successfully mediated a ceasefire agreement between the two nations in conflict, but the development was not immediately confirmed by Israel and Iran.

However, after both countries declared that they had accepted the terms of the ceasefire, cross-border strikes continued for a couple of hours, prompting Trump to lash out at Israel and Iran alike . “We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f— they’re doing,” NBC News quoted Trump as saying.

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Both Israel and Iran accused each other of breaching the ceasefire, although the dust has largely settled today with no reports of strikes so far.

Israel lifts restrictions

As the conflict seems to have come to an end, the Israel Defense Forces’ Home Front has greenlit schools across the country to reopen and lifted all restrictions that were imposed after Iran launched its retaliatory strikes against the country.

Since the conflict erupted on June 13, classrooms across the country have remained closed, with several educational institutions struck by Iranian missile fire. A directive from the Home Front Command ordered the closure of schools and all nonessential businesses for safety reasons.

Meanwhile, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian declared the end of the “12-day war” yesterday, after Trump said “the ceasefire is now in effect” on Truth Social and urged neither side to violate it.

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US strikes on Iran a failure?

US media have cited people familiar with the Defence Intelligence Agency findings as saying the weekend strikes did not fully eliminate Iran’s centrifuges or stockpile of enriched uranium.

Contrary to Trump’s claims that US strikes “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program, media reports downplayed the attacks that Washington joined early on Sunday.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the authenticity of the assessment but said it was “flat-out wrong and was classified as ’top secret’ but was still leaked.”

Trump, on the other hand,  rejected media reports saying that American strikes on Iran did not destroy its nuclear programme, but only set it back by a few months.

Will the ceasefire hold?

While the fighting has stopped between Israel and Iran, the ceasefire is widely seen as fragile by experts.

Jonathan Panikoff, a former intelligence officer and the director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council, told NPR that Iran’s military capabilities have been significantly weakened, and Israel may also be approaching the limits of its endurance after days of missile exchanges.

There is a possibility for diplomatic engagement, potentially through mediators such as Oman or even China. However, Panikoff cautions that a comprehensive resolution to Iran’s nuclear ambitions remains out of reach, he said.

“Iran has seen its power significantly reduced in the region. It has seen its ability to defend against Israel, frankly, be obliterated. It just did not exist fundamentally in the way that I think even a lot of Iranian officials thought it was going to. And I think for Israel, after years of war in Gaza and certainly the last 12 days, it’s accomplished most of its objectives to really diminish Iran’s ballistic missile program and nuclear program, and may itself be running out of interceptor missiles to defend against Iran’s missile strikes that we’ve seen [going] into Israel, including overnight,” Panikoff added.