“If the Middle East is unstable, the world will not be at peace,” Chinese President Xi Jinping said Thursday. “If the conflict escalates further, not only will the conflicting parties suffer greater losses, but regional countries will also suffer greatly.”

President Vladimir Putin says he has secured Israel’s pledge to safeguard Russian personnel at Iran’s Russia-built nuclear power plant and that he has reached out to both sides to try to end the week-old war.

(Reuters) -UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Friday that expansion of the Israel-Iran conflict could "ignite a fire no one can control" and called on both sides and potential parties to the conflict to "give peace a chance.