Moscow and Tehran warn against further escalation

Less than a day after Iran's attack on Israel and ahead of an imminent response from the Israeli military, both Russia's and Iran's foreign ministers have warned of the threat of further escalation.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Iranian counterpart Hussein Amirabdollahian said on Sunday that "new provocations" could lead to "dangerous" levels of tensions across the Middle East.

"A further escalation of the situation in the region and new dangerous provocative actions could lead to an increase in tensions in the Middle East," the Russian Foreign Ministry said, reporting on the discussions between the two ministers in a call on Sunday.

The ministers agreed that, instead of regional escalation, the United Nations Security Council should now deal with the case.

"The prevention of such [escalatory] scenarios and the elimination of their causes should be the subject of the UN Security Council's priority attention," they said.

Iran attacked Israel with several hundred missiles and combat drones on Saturday night in response to the killing of two generals of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in the Syrian capital Damascus in an attack widely believed to have been orchestrated by Israel.