In a telephone conversation with Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof, Iranian’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said that the missile attack on Israel’s military sites on Tuesday ”was aimed at reining in the barbarism of the regime and its efforts to spread its aggression across the region”. Referring to Israel’s assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July, Pezeshkian said that instead of condemning the regime’s terrorist actions, Western countries constantly urged the Islamic republic to exercise restraint.

Schoof, for his part, said the Netherlands believes that the West Asia region does not have the capacity to contain more tension, saying Amsterdam has asked all parties to refrain from expanding the tension. He said his country has also asked Israel to agree to a cease-fire deal in Gaza.

The talks came as Israel kept pounding Lebanon and the Gaza Strip on Sunday, killing more people. Israeli air attacks battered Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight and early on Sunday in the most intense bombardment of the Lebanese capital since Israel escalated its campaign against Hezbollah last month.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said on Sunday that Israeli strikes killed 23 people across Lebanon on Saturday. It was the single biggest attack of Israel’s assault on Beirut so far, witnesses and military analysts on local TV channels said. More than 2,000 people have been killed in nearly a year of fighting, most of them in the past two weeks, according to the Lebanese health ministry.

In Gaza, at least 26 Palestinians were killed and many others wounded after Israeli forces attacked a mosque and a school sheltering displaced people in central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah, the strip’s Health Ministry said. “The Israeli occupation committed three massacres against families in the Gaza Strip, resulting in 45 martyrs and 256 injuries arriving at hospitals during the past 24 hours,” it added.