Cracks had opened before president's outburst at ally

Such a public display of unfettered fury by a US president is extraordinary and perhaps unparalleled.

- BEL TREW

Standing on the South Lawn of the White House, a crowd of journalists had just asked Donald Trump about Israel and Iran's violations of the ceasefire he had just proudly declared on social media.

Leaning in, a furious Trump spat out that the two nations had been fighting "for so long and so hard that they don't know what the fuck they're doing".

"Do you understand that?" he raged, before storming off to his helicopter.

In the moments before, he had repeated four times in the space of a few minutes that he was displeased with Israel - the US's closest ally in the Middle East region, if not the world.

"I'm not happy with Israel. When I say, 'OK, now you have 12 hours', you don't go out in the first hour and just drop everything you have on [Iran]. So I'm not happy with them," he told the reporters, growing visibly more agitated. "I am really unhappy if Israel is going out this morning because of one rocket that didn't land, that was perhaps fired by mistake - I'm not happy about that." The language from a president known for his erratic behaviour - was vehement.

Barbara Leaf, who served as the US's assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs until earlier this year, told The Independent: "It's pretty extraordinary to have the president essentially loudly chiding the Israelis to stand down and not ... go on bombing. Trump is clearly very personally invested in this.

But we'll see. It's fragile... you've halted things right in the midst of a hot conflict."