Trump and Netanyahu spoke on Sunday night. Then Israel attacked Iran.

 

US President Donald Trump greets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he arrives at the White House on April 7, 2025.

Alex Wong/Getty Images/File

What US President Donald Trump signaled to reporters would happen on Sunday night is very much not how all this played out.

Shortly after Iran launched the first barrage of ballistic missiles at Israel, Trump urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to refrain from retaliating, according to a US official, and signaled to journalists in a series of interviews that the US president was the one calling the shots.

Netanyahu found himself in an almost impossible political dilemma – on one side was the need to respond to Iran’s ballistic missiles as he faced growing domestic pressure to take action; on the other was Trump’s ongoing effort to keep negotiations alive with Iran, toward a broader ceasefire agreement. Trump has repeatedly claimed that a deal could be signed any day, even as Iranian officials have told CNN that talks are deadlocked.

The Israeli premier has avoided openly criticizing Trump. Quite the opposite – he has repeatedly hailed Trump for attacking Iran and boasted about their regular communication. Netanyahu has gone to great lengths to show the coordination between the two leaders.

But Netanyahu defied the US president. And on Monday morning, Trump posted on his social media that Israel and Iran “must immediately stop ‘shooting’.” Trump appears to be once again trying to force Israel to stop a war, after doing the same in Gaza, Lebanon and in previous conflicts with Iran.

What remains to be seen is whether this was Netanyahu openly defying Trump or whether there was some level of coordination between the two that allowed Israel to retaliate against Iran for the ballistic missile launches, but to do so in such a way that didn’t automatically derail Trump’s ongoing diplomatic effort.

Watch CNN's Frederik Pleitgen reporting from Tehran

CNN’s Frederik Pleitgen is in Tehran, and has been reporting on the latest exchange of strikes between Israel and Iran, in the worst escalation since the April truce.

Pleitgen said the CNN team could hear a couple of loud thuds that could be explosions, “and also some smaller ones in close succession that might have been anti-aircraft fire, but it is not confirmed.”

Watch his report here:

Israeli and Iranian strikes threaten US negotiations. Catch up here

The Middle East woke to the greatest escalation in strikes since the US-Iran ceasefire in April, with Israel and Iran launching tit-for-tat attacks in recent hours.

The escalation is a major test for negotiations that US President Donald Trump said were “very close” before the latest attacks, predicting a deal would have been announced this week. Israel’s attacks appear to defy Trump’s wishes: The president told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hold off on retaliating against Iran, according to a US official.

Early in the US morning, Trump told Israel and Iran to “stop shooting” in his first response to the escalation.

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Most recently, Israel was defending waves of Iranian strikes, with CNN’s Oren Liebermann hearing interceptions over Jerusalem.

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• Timeline of strikes: Before being attacked, Israel said it struck targets in Iran after intercepting Iranian missiles. Explosions were reported in several Iranian cities and Israel’s attack damaged a petrochemical plant.
• Iran blames America: Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei saying the US “bears responsibility” for Israel’s actions, according to the state-affiliated Tasnim news agency. Iran also warned that if attacks on its energy infrastructure continue, regional energy installations will also be targeted, semi-official news agency Fars reported, citing “an informed military source” it didn’t identify.
• Israel ready to sustain attacks: The Israeli military is preparing for at least several days of fighting with Iran and the possibility of a prolonged campaign, an Israeli military official said.
• Why did Iran attack Israel? Iran said it was retaliating against Israeli strikes on Beirut. The Israeli military struck the Lebanese capital on Sunday after Hezbollah fire was intercepted over northern Israel.
• Lebanon in focus: Before Israel’s strikes on Iran, Trump told Fox News he was “not happy” about their strikes on the Lebanese capital. Trump has previously voiced frustration over the offensive in Lebanon as a bone of contention among Iranian authorities and said Israel would not move on Beirut. Last week, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun accused Iran of using his country as a bargaining chip in the war in a CNN interview.
• Negotiations under strain: On Sunday, Trump told The Financial Times that Israel would have to accept any deal the US reaches with Iran, saying “I call all the shots.” Trump told Fox News that the Iranian attack on Israel is “certainly not going to help negotiations,” and Iran needs to “get back to the table and make a deal.”
• Houthis attack again: The Iran-backed Houthis have claimed responsibility for missile strike launched from Yemen toward Israel, in the first such incident reported since April. Iran has threatened to block the Bab al-Mandab Strait, a vital maritime gateway to the Suez Canal, if Israel escalates its attacks.
• In the region: Iran targeted what its military described as “terrorist groups” in Iraq, the semi-official Mehr News said. In Jordan, missiles breached its airspace, a government minister said, without indicating who had fired the missiles.
• Oil prices rise: As the alarms traders and increases doubts that the Strait of Hormuz will reopen soon, oil prices are rising. Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, was up around 4.8% to $97.52 a barrel shortly after 4.30 a.m. ET. West Texas Intermediate, the US benchmark, climbed by a similar margin to $94.82 a barrel.