Jerusalem/ Moscow   -   Diplomatic pressure mounted Monday to avoid an escalation between Iran and Israel following high-profile killings that have sent regional tensions soaring, while numerous governments urged their citizens to leave Lebanon.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said late Sunday that his country was “determined to stand against” Iran “on all fronts”.

Tehran said Monday that “no one has the right to doubt Iran’s legal right to punish the Zionist regime” for Haniyeh’s killing.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told his counterparts from the G7 nations in a conference call on Sunday that any attack, could happen within 24 to 48 hours, as early as Monday, US news site Axios reported.

Blinken asked his counterparts to place diplomatic pressure on Tehran, Hezbollah and Israel to “maintain maximum restraint”, it added.

The United Nations’ rights chief Volker Turk called on “all parties, along with those states with influence, to act urgently to de-escalate what has become a very precarious situation”. Russia’s national Security Council secretary on Monday arrived for a visit to Tehran, news agencies reported, amid fears of a wider war in the region following last week’s killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran.

Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s ex-defence minister, was set to meet senior military and security officials as well as new President Masoud Pezeshkian to discuss strengthening bilateral cooperation in a wide range of spheres including security, Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency reported.

The visit was on the invitation of his Iranian counterpart, Ali Akbar Ahmadian, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Iran’s local Tasnim news agency reported.

It said the visit had the aim of “strengthening interactions, the examination of regional and international issues, and bilateral political security relations”. Russia has “strongly condemned” the killing of Haniyeh, the political leader of the Islamist Palestinian movement Hamas, in Tehran last month. Pezeshkian has described Russia as a “valued strategic ally”.