JERUSALEM: The United States said it was working “around the clock” to prevent an all-out war in the Middle East, while Israel remained on high alert on Tuesday for potential Iranian retaliation for two high-profile killings.
US President Joe Biden, whose country has sent additional warships and fighter jets to the region in support of Israel, held crisis talks with his national security team on Monday.
Biden and his top diplomat, Anthony Blinken, sought to calm tensions that have risen since Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, was killed last Wednesday in what is believed to be an Israeli attack on Tehran.
Biden called Jordan's King Abdullah II, whose country helped shoot down Iranian drones and missiles in an attack on Israel in April, while Blinken called top officials in Qatar and Egypt, key brokers pushing for a ceasefire in Israel's 10-month war and Hamas Gaza.
“We are engaged in intense diplomacy, virtually around the clock, with a very simple message – all sides must refrain from escalating,” Blinken said after joining other senior officials at a meeting at the White House.
Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian on Monday criticized what he called Israel's “criminal actions” “against the oppressed and defenseless people of Gaza” and the killing of Haniyeh.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran in no way seeks to expand the scale of the war and the crisis in the region, but this regime will definitely receive an answer for its crimes and arrogance,” Pezeshkian said during talks with a high-ranking Russian official, according to the official IRNA news agency. .
The attack, which Israel did not directly comment on, came hours after an Israeli strike in Beirut killed Fuad Shukr, the military chief of Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah movement.
Israel holds Shukr responsible for the rocket fire on the annexed Golan Heights that killed 12 children, calling him the “right-hand man” of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Nasrallah was due to give a speech on Tuesday to mark the week since Shukr's death.
Hezbollah has been engaged in almost daily cross-border clashes with Israeli forces since the day after Hamas attacked Israel in early October.
The group claimed several attacks on Israel on Tuesday, including using “explosive drones” targeting barracks north of the coastal city of Acre.
In southern Lebanon, five Hezbollah fighters were killed by an Israeli strike, according to a source in the Lebanese security services.
Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib admitted during a visit to Cairo that there was “the possibility of war between us and Israel… We cannot deny it.”
A European diplomat in Tel Aviv said a “coordinated response” against Israel was expected from Iran and its proxies, but de-escalation efforts were continuing.
“It doesn't mean there will be a simultaneous response from all sides,” he added, declining to be named because he was not authorized to speak on the matter.
“We are telling them that they have to stop playing with fire because the risk of outbreaks is higher than at any time since October 7,” he said.
Turkey on Monday joined several governments urging their citizens to leave Hezbollah-held Lebanon, while China urged more caution.
Many airlines have suspended flights to Lebanon or limited them to daylight hours.
Lebanon's national carrier, Middle East Airlines, has opened additional flights for people wishing to fly out or return, a company source said.
The Jeddah-based Organization of Islamic Cooperation is to meet on Wednesday at the request of “Palestine and Iran” to discuss developments in the region, an OIC official said.
The head of the UN on human rights, Volker Turk, called on “all parties, as well as those states that have influence, to act urgently to de-escalate the situation, which has become very fragile.”
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani and his Iraqi counterpart, Fouad Hussein, “agreed to make every effort to avoid regional escalation” in a joint statement on Monday. Italy presides over the G7 group of countries.
The war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, sparked by the Palestinian group's October 7 attack on Israel, has already drawn in Iranian-backed militants in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.
According to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures, the Hamas attack killed 1,197 people, mostly civilians.
Palestinian militants took 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still being held captive in Gaza, including 39 Israeli soldiers say were killed.
Thousands of Israelis gathered in Tel Aviv on Monday to celebrate the fifth birthday of child hostage Ariel Bibas and call for his and his family's release.
Israel's retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,653 people, the Hamas-controlled territory's health ministry said, but did not provide details on civilian or militant deaths.
In the occupied West Bank, Palestinian officials said Israeli forces killed eight people in two separate raids on Tuesday.
