SENSE OF RELIEF
In both countries, there was a palpable sense of relief that a path out of war had been charted, 12 days after Israel launched it with a surprise attack, and two days after Trump joined in with strikes on Iranian nuclear targets.
“We’re happy, very happy. Who mediated or how it happened doesn’t matter. The war is over. It never should have started in the first place,” said Reza Sharifi, 38, heading back to Tehran from Rasht on the Caspian Sea, where he had relocated with his family to escape the airstrikes.
Arik Daimant, a software engineer in Tel Aviv, said: “Regrettably, it’s a bit too late for me and my family, because our house back here was totally destroyed in the recent bombings last Sunday. But as they say: ‘better late than never’, and I hope this ceasefire is a new beginning.”
Speaking to reporters on board Air Force One heading to the NATO summit, Trump said he did not want to see Iran’s ruling system toppled.
“I don’t want it. I’d like to see everything calm down as quickly as possible. Regime change takes chaos and ideally, we don’t want to see so much chaos,” he said.
“Iran’s not going to have a nuclear weapon, by the way, I think it’s the last thing on their mind right now.”
In the hours before the truce took effect, four people – one of them an off-duty Israeli soldier – were killed by Iranian missiles that hit a residential building in Beersheba in southern Israel, according to the Israeli ambulance service.
Iranian officials said nine people were killed by a strike on a residential building in northern Iran.
