For more than two years, hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza and Lebanon have lived in dread of Avichay Adraee's next social media post.

Israel's Arabic-language military spokesman has been the animated face of its campaigns and the main source of warnings ahead of strikes and major offensives. That has made him one of the most recognizable Israelis in the Arab world and a focus of fury as well as some fascination.

The enormous costs of Israel's multi-front war and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's determination to turn his country into a "super-Sparta" of the Middle East are driving up the defense budget and raising fears of cutbacks in education and healthcare.

The total cost of the series of interconnected regional conflicts that began with Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 stood at 405 billion shekels ($138 billion) as of late April, according to the governor of the Bank of Israel, Amir Yaron.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Monday said Tehran remained at the negotiating table after halting attacks on Israel following the first exchange of fire since the April truce.

"Diplomacy and defense are the two wings of national power; we have neither left the battlefield nor the negotiating table," Pezeshkian said in a post on X, adding that Tehran "will not retreat in the face of any threat".

The Iranian military's joint command said Monday it was halting its offensive operations, after Israel and Iran exchanged fire in their first attacks since the U.S. struck a ceasefire with Tehran two months ago.

Iran had delivered a "painful response" to Israel and "accordingly, the cessation of armed forces operations is hereby announced", the Khatam al-Anbiya command said in a statement carried by state television.

Local media in Iran said Monday that a "hostile drone" was shot down over the capital Tehran during the new round of fighting with Israel.

"A hostile drone belonging to the American-Zionist enemy was targeted and destroyed by air defenses in the skies over Tehran," the Mehr news agency reported, without elaborating.

The Israeli military said Monday it had struck and dismantled Iranian defense systems deployed across several areas in the country.

"Recently, defense systems were deployed in numerous areas across Iran as part of the regime's efforts to restore its detection and defense capabilities, which were degraded during Operation Roaring Lion," the military said.

Iran said Monday that the United States held responsibility for the resumption of fighting with Israel, saying Israel's actions "cannot be separated" from U.S. policy.

"Without a doubt, as I said, the actions of the Zionist regime in the region cannot be separated from U.S. policies," foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said at a press conference in Tehran attended by AFP.

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed an attack on Israel and said Israel-affiliated vessels would again be a target in the Red Sea, putting the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the narrow Bab el-Mandeb Strait connected them in danger.

The statement from Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree was broadcast on the Houthis’ al-Masirah satellite news channel. During the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, the Houthis killed at least nine mariners and sunk four ships in over 100 attacks, often targeting vessels with tangential or no ties at all to Israel.

Israel and Iran traded fire on Monday, seriously testing a fragile truce and threatening hopes for a deal to end the Middle East war.

The new attacks, including a strike on an Iranian petrochemical complex, came hours after U.S. President Donald Trump called on Israel to refrain from retaliating against Tehran's missiles.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday he will call Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to urge him not to retaliate against Iranian missile strikes on Israel, U.S. news outlet Axios reported.

"I am going to call Bibi right now and tell him not to retaliate," Trump was quoted as saying by Axios journalist Barak Ravid in a phone interview, using the Israeli leader's nickname.