What do we know about the Israel-Iran ceasefire timeline, and what happens next?

A ceasefire between Iran and Israel announced by US President Donald Trump on Monday evening appears to be holding, despite confusion over the details, and with both sides initially having accused each other of violating the truce.

Here’s a quick summary of what we know about how the ceasefire came into effect, based on the public statements made by each side, and media reports.

What’s actually happened?

The ceasefire was first announced by Mr Trump on his social media platform Truth Social shortly after 11pm UK time (6pm EST) on Monday, with the president claiming it would take effect “approximately 6 hours from now, when Israel and Iran have wound down and completed their in progress, final missions”. It’s since been reported that Qatar helped broker the deal.

Yet the precise details of how the ceasefire would operate were unclear, with neither side immediately issuing a response to Mr Trump’s announcement.

To add to the confusion, in a statement on X (formerly Twitter) at 1:46am UK time (4:16am in Iran/3:46am in Israel) on Tuesday, Iranian foreign minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said there had been no agreement “on any ceasefire or cessation of military operations”, but added that Iran would cease its operations provided Israel ceased theirs “no later than 4am Tehran time” (despite 4am having already passed in Tehran at the time he apparently posted). Around 15 minutes later, Mr Araghchi appeared to claim that Iran’s armed forces had indeed stopped their attacks.

At about 6am UK time (approximately seven hours after it was first announced) Mr Trump posted that the ceasefire was “now in effect”, and urged both parties not to violate it.

But it was not until past 7am UK time on Tuesday that Israel confirmed in its own statement that it had agreed to a ceasefire.

Has the ceasefire held?

It’s not clear exactly when both sides agreed to stop their attacks, with barrages reported from both sides after Mr Trump’s initial post. But what we do know is that in the hours after Mr Trump claimed a ceasefire was in effect, both Iran and Israel accused each other of violations.

The New York Times has published a detailed timeline of exactly when attacks were reported over this period, and what each side has claimed happened.

Mr Trump appeared to confirm that both sides had launched attacks in between the ceasefire being announced and taking effect, telling reporters that the two countries “don’t know what the f*** they’re doing”.

And in posts on Truth Social, he urged Israel to cancel planned attacks, before claiming soon afterwards that it had stood down.

In a statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office confirmed that Israeli forces had launched missiles since the ceasefire took effect, but claimed this was in response to Iranian violations (which were denied by Tehran). The statement said that following a call with Mr Trump, Israel had “refrained from further attacks”.

At the time of publication, at 4:45pm UK time on Wednesday 25 June, the ceasefire appears to be holding.

What happens next?

As recent developments have shown, this is a fast-moving situation, and there’s still a lot we don’t know about what might happen next.

And while Mr Trump—and some other world leaders—have proclaimed the ceasefire a success, whether or not the agreement will ultimately lead to renewed negotiations with Iran remains to be seen.

Crucially, there appears to be some doubt over just how effective the US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities actually were. Reports have claimed an initial Pentagon intelligence assessment estimated that the bombings likely only set Iran’s nuclear programme back by a matter of months. The White House has claimed this assessment is “flat out wrong”, and Mr Trump has claimed Iran’s nuclear sites were “completely destroyed”.