UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres sees the assassination of a senior Hamas leader in a suspected Israeli strike in Beirut as a worrying development, said a UN spokesperson on Tuesday.
"Obviously, the developments are extremely worrying. And I think this just really highlights what the secretary-general had just said about the dangers of the spillover of this (Israeli-Palestinian) conflict in the wider region," said Florencia Soto Nino, associate spokesperson for Guterres.
"The secretary-general urges all parties to exercise maximum restraint and take urgent steps to de-escalate tensions in the region," she said.
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Hamas announced a freeze on ceasefire negotiations with Israel after the faction's deputy chief, Saleh al-Arouri, was killed Tuesday evening in an Israeli attack in Lebanon, a Palestinian source told Xinhua.
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The source added that Hamas, at war with Israel, rejected any talks about reaching a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip amid escalated Israeli aggression and "assassination schemes" against Palestinian leaders.
Earlier, a Hamas source told Xinhua that several aides of al-Arouri, deputy head of the Hamas politburo, were also killed in the Israeli attack targeting a Hamas office in the southern suburb of the Lebanese capital of Beirut.