Israelis 'may have made a tactical error' in reaction to alleged Iran ceasefire violation

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00:00Let's go now live to Jerusalem, where France 24's Noga Tarnalposki is standing by.

00:05Noga, this is a rapidly developing story.

00:07A lot of things have happened over the past couple of hours.

00:10Boil it down for us, if you will.

00:11What's the very latest?

00:15Well, I could boil it down just by saying Donald Trump woke up and he didn't like what he saw.

00:21This is the messy Middle East.

00:23I mean, you know, it's hard to know where this will go.

00:26And Donald Trump may also just get bored, as he seems to have gotten bored with the Gaza quagmire,

00:34where initially he said he was going to, you know, make peace in a day.

00:40Then he said he was going to turn it into a resort enclave.

00:43And then he seems to have forgotten about it.

00:45But regarding today, Israel and Iran were hit very hard by each other.

00:51Israel with missiles, including, as you just quoted the president saying,

00:57a 400 kilo radar missile that hit, was a direct hit on the safe rooms,

01:04on the bomb shelters of some flats in Beersheba.

01:08At least four people are dead there.

01:10Israel hit Tehran and other sites in Iran very hard.

01:15The Israel Defense Forces said that it hit ballistic missile storage sites,

01:23launching pads, launchers, and one nuclear scientist whose name I haven't yet been able to get.

01:31And then Donald Trump announced the ceasefire.

01:33It seems to have been something almost unilateral.

01:37He seems to have informed both parties that he wanted the ceasefire

01:40and understood from both parties that it was a thumbs up on that.

01:45But, you know, these ceasefires tend to be very, very ragged.

01:51And we have to see.

01:52The Israelis may have made a small tactical error today by coming out really strong.

02:00Immediately, once this missile was directed over the northern Israel,

02:05both the defense minister and the chief of staff of the Israeli army

02:08made very bombastic announcements about very powerful Israeli retaliation they were planning in Tehran.

02:16But that retaliation has not yet been launched.

02:20And so they're now caught in the middle, criticized by the American president

02:24for having done something that they just planned but haven't yet done.

02:29Indeed.

02:29And Donald Trump on his Truth Social said something like,

02:32Israel, do not drop those bombs.

02:33If you do, it is a major violation.

02:36Bring your pilots home now.

02:38A quagmire, as you said, absolutely.

02:40I mean, where does this leave the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu?

02:47It leaves the Israeli prime minister now visibly exposed.

02:51I mean, all along, from June 13th,

02:55and the launch of Israel's, you know, operation against Iran,

02:59Iran, it's been clear that Netanyahu took a bet.

03:03He made a risky bet, which is that he would be able to persuade Donald Trump

03:09to join in the fighting and that that would end the nuclear project completely.

03:14I think in part, when you heard Donald Trump's peak at the questions,

03:19the very legitimate questions asked by those journalists,

03:22questions we should all be asking and armies and governments should be asking,

03:26I think part of his peak is that he feels he was promised in part by the Israelis

03:32that if he intervened with U.S. B-2 bombers,

03:37the Iranian nuclear project would be eradicated, would be over.

03:42He clearly believes that it is.

03:44To my knowledge, neither the U.S. military nor the Israeli have said that they have that knowledge just yet.

03:51And that's a gap between military culture and politics as it is operated today.

03:58But in a month or two, this could take time.

04:02We may find out that Iran was able to hide its enriched uranium.

04:06We may be able to find out that, no, that in fact that program was demolished and we'll have clear results.

04:12But in the meanwhile, Prime Minister Netanyahu took,

04:15he risked everything on his relationship with Donald Trump.

04:19In recent days, it seemed to have worked out for him because Donald Trump did something no other American president agreed to do,

04:27and that is use American forces to attack Iran, a huge diplomatic and personal success for Netanyahu.

04:34But now, this entire Iran operation is sort of signed by Donald Trump.

04:41And so he will have these reactions, and he may not like the fact that Prime Minister Netanyahu

04:47is responding principally to domestic needs of his own.

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