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As Israel contemplates a two-week ceasefire announced by United States President Donald Trump in the war on Iran on Tuesday night, it appears weakened in the eyes of its opponents and critics. Its arch-nemesis, Iran, is still standing; Israel’s defensive stock of missiles is depleted and its prime minister is facing a political backlash.

Following news of the Pakistan-brokered truce, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office issued a statement in English, saying that the PM supports the US decision and claiming that “Iran no longer poses a nuclear, missile and terror threat to America, Israel, Iran’s Arab neighbours and the world.”

But there was a caveat. While mediator Pakistan had announced that Israeli attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon would also cease, Netanyahu added that he does not regard the ceasefire as extending to Israel’s war on Lebanon, which, for now at least, the US appears willing to allow to continue, subject to its peace negotiations with Iran.

Responding to Netanyahu’s announcement, Israel’s opposition leader, Yair Lapid, who had strongly supported his country’s attack on regional nemesis Iran, called the ceasefire one of the greatest “political disasters in all of our history”. Israel had not even been involved in negotiations, he said, adding that, despite its military successes, the prime minister had “failed politically, failed strategically, and didn’t meet a single one of the goals that he himself set”, adding that it would take years to repair the damage inflicted upon the country through the prime minister’s “arrogance”.

Others were swift to join in the bashing. “I wasn’t surprised that the announcement was in English,” Ofer Cassif of the left-wing Hadash party said. “Netanyahu has no interest in talking to the people of Israel. He rarely does and almost never enters the [television or radio] studio,” he said of the prime minister, who waited two weeks to spell out his war aims to the Israeli public in a televised address after the start of the war on Iran.

“He knows, probably correctly, that those who support him will do so anyway, and those who oppose him will continue to do so, so when he speaks, it’s to the international media and to reassure his base,” Cassif said.

Netanyahu’s war aims

Those war aims, as stated by Netanyahu, of preventing “Iran from developing nuclear weapons” and of creating ” the conditions for the Iranian people so they can remove the cruel regime of tyranny”, were merely the latest iteration of Israel’s longstanding strategic goals. Indeed, Netanyahu has been claiming Iran’s potential to develop a nuclear weapon was imminent since the 1990s.

But, despite significant military successes over the past 40 days of attacks on Iran, neither of those goals has been achieved.

“The Israelis are deeply disappointed with the ceasefire as none of the original aims of the war have been achieved,” Ahron Bregman, a senior teaching fellow at the Department for War Studies at King’s College London, who has recently returned from Israel, said. “The Iranian regime is still in place, its ballistic missile programme could be rebuilt very quickly, and it’s still got 440kg of enriched uranium at 60 percent purity, enough for 10 bombs.”

In fact, according to many observers, despite significant military defeats, including the loss of control over its airspace, the assassination of much of its leadership – including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of the war, as well as many of Iran’s key military figures – Iran has, counterintuitively, emerged stronger as a result, analysts say.

“Israel and the US had many tactical gains. They won militarily, but, strategically, Iran is the clear victor,” Bregman said.

A strategic blunder?

Key among its victories was not just the Iranian government’s survival in the face of relentless Israeli and US military strikes, but also its decision to close the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s key energy arteries and, according to current negotiations, one where safe passage for international shipping is now entirely under the control of Iran and its neighbour Oman.

Iran has been struggling under increased US sanctions after Trump, with Netanyahu’s encouragement, unilaterally withdrew from an international deal to limit its nuclear programme in return for reduced economic sanctions in 2018. However, many observers now expect Iran to continue with newly imposed levies on ships for safe passage through the Strait. Also supporting the Iranian economy are Trump’s promises, posted on Truth Social on Wednesday, of future sanctions and tariff relief as part of the ceasefire arrangement.

“Iran’s decision to block the Hormuz pushed Trump off balance, and he never recovered,” Bregman said. “Future historians will regard this Iranian decision as the turning point in the war.”

According to some observers, Israel’s conduct during the war has also served to strengthen the Iranian government. Some centres of opposition, such as Tehran’s Sharif University, which had been a focal point of antigovernment protests in January, have been destroyed in Israeli attacks. Donald Trump’s 11th-hour threat to wipe out Iranian civilisation also allowed the Iranian government to beam out rallying images of citizens forming human chains around critical infrastructure.

“Please understand, I despise the Iranian regime; it’s murderous,” Cassif told Al Jazeera on Wednesday. “But we [Hadash] had warned from second number one that we didn’t have the right, or the ability, to change it. Instead, we’ve strengthened the support for that regime at the expense of the opposition,” he said of reports of the surge in support for the Iranian government in the face of US and Israeli attacks.

Israel and the US had, he said, “given operational control of the Strait of Hormuz to Iran, which had never been an issue before, and, with the first aggressions coming while negotiations were under way, signalled to the entire world that they can’t trust the US and Israel”.

‘Israel has achieved nothing tangible’

Then there is Israel’s assault on southern and eastern Lebanon, where it claims it is targeting Hezbollah strongholds. Whether it will continue with these attacks remains to be seen.

For now, Israel is not expected to attend peace talks in Pakistan on Friday. But that is where, according to Bregman, its freedom to continue attacks on Lebanon may be determined by the US and Hezbollah’s allies in Tehran.

“Assuming the ceasefire holds beyond the two-week period, Israel achieved almost nothing tangible,” Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli ambassador and consul general in New York, told Al Jazeera of its war on Iran. “Iran upended the strategic asymmetry by both attacking the Arab Gulf states and, crucially, shutting the Strait of Hormuz with almost no pushback from China. Israel is increasingly perceived as a destabilising force and, arguably, strained the US relationship since all promises Netanyahu made to Trump unravelled,” he said, referring to reported assurances of swift regime change in Iran that Israel made.

Cassif was more succinct: “It’s crazy.”

In the final hours before a United States-Iran ceasefire was reached early on Wednesday in the Middle East, the war that had shaken the world for nearly six weeks had threatened to explode to even more prolonged and devastating levels.

US President Donald Trump issued increasingly apocalyptic warnings, including threats deemed genocidal, that he would obliterate Iran’s infrastructure and a “whole civilisation” would die if his deadline to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by 8pm Washington, DC, time on Tuesday (midnight GMT) was not heeded by Tehran.

A day earlier, Trump had also threatened to bomb Iran back to the “Stone Ages”.

World leaders expressed horror over his language, global markets tanked and some started pondering whether the Trump White House was perhaps even contemplating the use of nuclear weapons.

Eventually, over the course of a tense Tuesday, last‑minute diplomacy mediated by Pakistan culminated in a two‑week ceasefire less than 90 minutes before Trump’s self‑imposed deadline to carry out large-scale, devastating attacks on Iran. Israel also agreed to halt its attacks but said Lebanon was not included in the deal.

The truce was announced after both sides agreed to stop all attacks and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Talks in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, on Friday are slated to restart negotiations for a permanent settlement.

On Wednesday, Trump suggested in a Truth Social post that the ceasefire could usher in a “Golden Age for the Middle East”.

But through Tuesday as Trump’s self-imposed deadline approached, the region and the world were on edge as threats, counterthreats, escalatory attacks from both sides and diplomatic efforts intensified all at once, and it was unclear which would triumph – negotiations or further devastation.

Here are the key moments of the tense final hours leading up to this fragile ceasefire:

12:06 GMT, Tuesday – Trump’s threat to Iran’s civilisation

On Tuesday morning, Trump warned in a post on his social media platform Truth Social that Washington would unleash devastating strikes on Iranian bridges, power plants and other civilian infrastructure.

Trump even declared that “a whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back again” – a phrase that legal and human rights experts said was akin to a “genocidal” threat.

“We have a plan, because of the power of our military, where every bridge in Iran will be decimated … where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding, and never to be used again,” he said.

15:21 GMT, Tuesday – US strikes hit Kharg Island

Iran’s semiautonomous Mehr news agency confirmed reports that Kharg Island, where Iran’s main oil exporting facilities are based, had been hit but added that there had been no damage to infrastructure and the situation was under control.

15:40 GMT, Tuesday – China, Russia Security Council veto on Strait of Hormuz

⁠During ⁠⁠⁠⁠a vote in the United Nations Security Council, China and Russia vetoed ⁠⁠a Bahraini resolution encouraging states to coordinate efforts to protect commercial shipping ‌‌‌‌in the Strait of Hormuz.

Eleven countries on the 15-member council voted in favour of the resolution, two abstained and ⁠⁠⁠⁠two voted against it – China ⁠⁠⁠⁠and Russia, which, as permanent members, have veto power in the UN’s highest decision-making body.

Moscow and Beijing argued the draft was one‑sided and unfair to Tehran. China’s UN ambassador, Fu Cong, said moving ahead with the proposal while the US was issuing threats about the possible destruction of an entire civilisation would have conveyed the wrong signal.

16:54 GMT, Tuesday – Qatar and UAE send elevated alerts

Qatar’s Ministry of Defence said it “successfully intercepted a missile attack” targeting the country.

This followed an “elevated” threat alert that was sent out and subsequent sounds of missile interception over the capital, Doha.

Nearly half an hour earlier, the United Arab Emirates also reported a barrage of missile and drone attacks on its territory.

18:23 GMT, Tuesday – Iran’s envoy to Pakistan reports ‘step forward’ after ‘sensitive stage’

Reza Amiri Moghadam said in a post on X that “as of now”, there has been “a step forward from [a] critical, sensitive stage”.

“In the next stage, respect and comity should replace rhetoric and redundancy. Stay more tuned,” the Iranian ambassador to Pakistan added.

Moghadam earlier in the day had referred to Pakistan’s “positive and productive endeavours” towards peace and said talks had entered a “critical” stage – the first official confirmation from Iran that it was engaged in formal negotiations with the US.

19:17 GMT, Tuesday – Pakistan’s PM asks Trump to extend deadline

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif appealed to Trump to push back his deadline for an Iran deal by two weeks and for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz during the same period, saying ongoing diplomatic efforts were promising and should be given a chance.

“Diplomatic efforts for [a] peaceful settlement of the ongoing war in the Middle East are progressing steadily, strongly and powerfully with the potential to lead to substantive results in [the] near future,” Sharif wrote in a post on X. “To allow diplomacy to run its course, I earnestly request President Trump to extend the deadline for two weeks.”

Sharif also called on Tehran to open the Strait of Hormuz for the same two weeks “as a goodwill gesture”.

20:25 GMT, Tuesday – Iran threatens to block regional oil and gas

A spokesperson for the Iranian military’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, Ebrahim Zolfaghari, warned the country would target the energy infrastructure of the US and its Gulf allies in the region, Fars news agency reported.

The official said Iran would seek to deprive the region of oil and gas for years with the aim of forcing US forces and their partners to withdraw.

20:41 GMT, Tuesday – US and Israeli air strikes on energy plant in southwest Iran

The deputy security officer of Khuzestan province announced that the Amirkabir Petrochemical Plant in the port city of Mahshahr was struck in an air strike, Mehr reported, adding that local authorities were assessing the extent of the damage and potential casualties.

22:45 GMT, Tuesday – Trump announces temporary ceasefire

With less than an hour and a half to go to his deadline for the destruction of Iranian “civilisation”, Trump announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran after talks with Sharif and Pakistan’s military chief, Asim Munir.

He said the ceasefire would be “double-sided” and Washington had received a “workable” 10-point proposal from Iran.

Twenty-five minutes later, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi confirmed Trump’s announcement and added that Tehran would abide by the temporary truce if attacks on its territory were halted.

In a post on X, Sharif invited Iranian and US delegations to Islamabad on Friday “to further negotiate for a conclusive agreement to settle all disputes”.

04:01 GMT, Wednesday – Trump says ceasefire could lead to ‘Golden Age’ for Middle East

A week earlier, Trump had threatened to bomb Iran back to the “Stone Ages”. Hours after he announced the two-week ceasefire with Iran, his tone had changed.

“A big day for World Peace! Iran wants it to happen, they’ve had enough! Likewise, so has everyone else!” he wrote on Truth Social. “Just like we are experiencing in the U.S., this could be the Golden Age of the Middle East!!!”