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← The June 2025 Twelve-Day War

The Ceasefire: Who Announced It, Who Agreed, and Who Broke It

Evidence rating: CONFIRMED for the announcement, the staged timetable, and the violations in the first hours. MODERATE for who asked whom to stop. The twelve-day war did not end with a signed treaty. It ended with a post on Truth Social, a denial from Iran's foreign minister, a last round of missiles and bombs, and a phone call from the President to Israel's prime minister. The version most Americans heard, "Trump ended the war," is true as far as it goes. This page shows the rest.

If you remember one thing: there was never a written ceasefire agreement that the public could read. The terms that exist are the President's post, a timetable a White House official gave CBS News, Israel's cabinet statement, and Iran's foreign minister's posts on X. A retired American ambassador who studies ceasefires said it plainly three weeks later: "This deal doesn't seem to have any specific details attached to it."

Go deeper (Level 4): The final night, hour by hour · Who asked for the ceasefire? · Al Udeid, June 23

The announcement: Monday, June 23, 6:02 p.m. Eastern​

A few hours after Iran fired missiles at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar (see Iran's Retaliation), President Trump posted on Truth Social (original post; full text as copied by @TruthTrumpPosts):

"CONGRATULATIONS TO EVERYONE! It has been fully agreed by and between Israel and Iran that there will be a Complete and Total CEASEFIRE (in approximately 6 hours from now, when Israel and Iran have wound down and completed their in progress, final missions!), for 12 hours, at which point the War will be considered, ENDED! Officially, Iran will start the CEASEFIRE and, upon the 12th Hour, Israel will start the CEASEFIRE and, upon the 24th Hour, an Official END to THE 12 DAY WAR will be saluted by the World."

He added: "This is a War that could have gone on for years, and destroyed the entire Middle East, but it didn't, and never will!" Axios flashed it within half an hour: "BREAKING: Trump announces Iran-Israel ceasefire" (Axios on X, June 23, 2025). Vice President JD Vance, on the official White House Rapid Response account, called it "an important reset moment for the entire region" (@RapidResponse47, June 23, 2025).

Six days earlier, the same President had denied he was working on a ceasefire at all. When France's President Macron said Trump had left the G7 summit to work on one, Trump posted: "Wrong! He has no idea why I am now on my way to Washington, but it certainly has nothing to do with a Cease Fire. Much bigger than that" (Truth Social, June 17, 2025, as copied by @TruthTrumpPosts). Four days after that, B-2s were over Fordow.

The timetable, as the White House explained it​

"Wound down and completed their in progress, final missions" meant both sides had permission to keep firing for six more hours. A White House official gave CBS News the clock (CBS News):

StepWhen (Eastern time)What
1Midnight, Tuesday June 24Iran stops striking Israel
2Noon, Tuesday June 24Israel stops striking Iran, 12 hours later
3Midnight, Wednesday June 25War considered over

Notice the asymmetry. On paper, Israel got a 12-hour window in which it could strike Iran while Iran could not strike back. An open-source analyst account pointed that out the same night: "Per President Trump, Israel now has 12 hours where it can strike Iran, but Iran cannot strike back" (@Osinttechnical, June 24, 2025).

How it was brokered​

According to a senior White House official quoted by CBS, "Mr. Trump communicated directly with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while several other administration officials — Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff — communicated with Iran through direct and indirect channels." Another official said Qatar helped broker it: "Mr. Trump had asked the Qatari Emir to get Iran to agree to a ceasefire. Vance coordinated with the Qatari prime minister on details, and Iran agreed to the ceasefire after speaking to the prime minister." The official said the direct talks with Iran came after Iran's strike on Al Udeid (CBS News).

Mohammad Ali Shabani, editor of the regional outlet Amwaj, reported the same evening: "Iranian sources confirm that ceasefire with Israel has been agreed. According to one source, the truce will go into effect at 3.30am Jerusalem time" (quoted by @Osinttechnical, June 23, 2025).

What Israel said​

Israel's government accepted in a written statement quoted by CBS: "In light of achieving the objectives of the operation, and in full coordination with President Trump, Israel has agreed to the president's proposal for a bilateral ceasefire. Israel will respond forcefully to any violation of the ceasefire" (CBS News). Netanyahu then told Israelis the war had achieved "all of the war's goals," and: "We rose like a lion, and our roar shook Tehran" (Al Jazeera, list of key events, June 24, 2025).

What Iran said​

Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, first denied there was any deal. On X he wrote that "there is NO 'agreement' on any ceasefire or cessation of military operations," that Iran would stop if Israel stopped its "illegal aggression" by 4 a.m. Tehran time, and that "The final decision on the cessation of our military operations will be made later" (Araghchi on X, June 23, 2025, as cited by CBS). Hours later: "The military operations of our powerful Armed Forces to punish Israel for its aggression continued until the very last minute, at 4am" (Araghchi on X, June 24, 2025). Iranian state television then said the ceasefire had begun (CBS).

Araghchi later published his own account in a book chapter excerpted by Amwaj. He says the message he sent to Witkoff that night read: "We do not accept a ceasefire or a halt to operations. However, we have decided not to continue our attacks after 4 am Tehran time. A final decision will be made later" (Amwaj excerpt of Araghchi's book). That is Iran's account, not a verified record of the message.

So both statements can be true at once. Trump said there was an agreement. Iran said there was no agreement, only a decision to stop if Israel stopped. In practice, that is how the war ended.

The first hours: both sides kept firing​

  • Iran's last salvos. Before the 7 a.m. Israel time start, Iran fired six salvos. One missile hit an apartment building in Beersheba and killed four people in safe rooms (Times of Israel). Iran's Revolutionary Guard said its last wave was fired "minutes before the ceasefire implementation" (Al Jazeera).
  • Israel's response. The IDF chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, said: "In light of the severe violation of the ceasefire carried out by the Iranian regime, we will respond with force," according to ABC News as quoted in a June 24 Reddit thread. Iranian state television denied that Iran fired after the deadline (same report).
  • Trump's anger. On the White House lawn before leaving for the NATO summit, Trump said: "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" (The Conversation, July 14, 2025, citing CNN). He posted "ISRAEL. DO NOT DROP THOSE BOMBS," and told Israel to "bring your pilots home, now!" He said he was "really unhappy" with Israel (Al Jazeera; Times of Israel liveblog, June 24).
  • One radar site. After Trump's call with Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister's office said the military "destroyed a radar installation near Tehran" instead of the larger strike it had planned (Al Jazeera).
  • "The Ceasefire is in effect." Just after 1 a.m. Eastern, Trump posted: "THE CEASEFIRE IS NOW IN EFFECT. PLEASE DO NOT VIOLATE IT!" After the Netanyahu call, he said again that the ceasefire was in effect (CBS News).

A running hour-by-hour log by the independent analysis account S2 Underground put the pieces in order the same evening, while warning that "the details are hard to verify": Al Udeid at 16:30 GMT June 23, the Truth Social announcement at 22:02 GMT, a large Israeli sortie after the announcement but before the ceasefire took effect, Trump's call to Netanyahu, and explosions in Tehran at 12:57 GMT June 24 (S2 Underground, June 24, 2025). The same analyst wrote: "bookending the spat by calling it the 'Twelve Day War' implies that the war only lasted twelve days. However, this affair might not be over just yet." Eight months later, it was not.

Who asked for the ceasefire?​

Each side says the other asked first. The circumstantial evidence, laid out on Who Asked for the Ceasefire?, points to American interceptor stocks and an Israeli government that had already got the American strike it wanted.

  • Trump's account. In a later post the same night, he said Israel and Iran "came to me, almost simultaneously, and said, 'PEACE!' I knew the time was NOW" (Truth Social, as cited by CBS).
  • Iran's account. Iran's defense minister, Aziz Nasirzadeh, said in August 2025 that Israel's air defenses were running out and that this "prompted them to request a ceasefire" (Young Journalists Club interview, as translated by @ME_Observer_). In March 2026, Araghchi told NBC News that the United States and Israel "asked for an unconditional cease-fire" (as quoted by @Z_DauletSingh). In December 2025 an Iranian foreign ministry account said that "by day 12, US messaged that Israel would halt at 4 am and asked us to stop too" (@IranNuances). These are Iranian accounts.
  • The interceptor question. Before the ceasefire there were reports that Israel was running low on missile-defense interceptors, reports the IDF denied (as summarized in the Wikipedia Twelve-Day War article). A senior US Navy official, Admiral James Kilby, later told Congress the war burned through munitions at an "alarming rate," according to the Financial Times as relayed by Drop Site News. Both are consistent with a war both sides had reasons to stop.

What was missing​

Donald Heflin, a former US ambassador who directs the Murrow Center at Tufts University's Fletcher School, described the June 23 deal this way: "the outside world imposes a ceasefire. Trump likely told both Israel and Iran: Look, it's enough." He added: "This deal doesn't seem to have any specific details attached to it. Ceasefires work better when they have that," and that nobody had negotiated the two issues that mattered most, Israel's fear of an Iranian bomb and Iran's demand that "assassinations of our military generals and scientists" stop (The Conversation, July 14, 2025).

Those gaps are why the ceasefire held for eight months and then failed. See After the Ceasefire. A year later, asked by a reporter how he defines a ceasefire, Trump answered: "In that part of the world, ceasefire is when you're shooting in a more moderate manner" (video, @Osint613, June 3, 2026).

Why this matters to an American family​

  • No treaty, no vote. The war the United States joined without a vote in Congress also ended without any document Congress could read or ratify. The terms lived in social-media posts.
  • The pause was not peace. The unresolved questions (the enriched uranium, inspections, Israel's freedom to strike again) were the same questions that restarted the war in February 2026, this time with American deaths.
  • Watch the pattern. The same sequence (announcement by post, denial by Iran, violations in the first hours, a call to Netanyahu) repeated in the April 2026 ceasefire, when CNN reported "There does not appear to be a formal written document for the ceasefire agreement" (@Osinttechnical citing CNN, April 8, 2026).

Status: Donald Trump, JD Vance, Marco Rubio, Steve Witkoff, Benjamin Netanyahu, Eyal Zamir, Abbas Araghchi, Aziz Nasirzadeh, Donald Heflin, and Mohammad Ali Shabani are alive, as far as these sources show. Nothing on this page is a finding that any named person acted unlawfully.

What a citizen can check​

  • Read the President's June 23 post and the June 24 CBS story side by side. Find the sentence that says who agreed to what, and when.
  • Ask your representative: should a ceasefire that ends a war the United States fought be written down and sent to Congress?

Sources on this page​

Last Updated: 2026-09-26

Research captures: twitter/t87__v1036.md, t87__v1037.md, t87__v1038.md, t87__v1039.md, t87__v1040.md, t87__v1041.md, t87__v1042.md, t82__v973.md, t82__v974.md, t82__v976.md, t82__v977.md, t82__v978.md, t82__v981.md, t86__v1026.md, t86__v1029.md

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