Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked President Donald Trump to postpone plans to attack Iran, a senior US official said on Thursday, according to the New York Times.

Executions of around 800 protesters were reportedly stayed following the intervention from Israel and other countries in the region including Saudi Arabia, Oman and Qatar.

But the White House insists that Trump will continue to “keep all of this options on the table”.

Donald Trump was talked out of attacking Iran at the last-minute, according to officials involved in the protest.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Oman “led a long, frantic, last-minute diplomatic effort” to stop a US strike, a senior Saudi official told AFP.

“It was a sleepless night to defuse more bombs in the region,” the official said, adding that talks remained ongoing in order “to consolidate the gained trust and the current good spirit”.

The family of a 23-year-old protester were forced to smuggle her body out of the morgue after she was shot dead by security forces at a protest.

Robina Aminian, a fashion student, joined a demonstration on 8 January and died after being shot in the head.

Her family were forced to smuggle her body out of the building for a burial after authorities refused permission.

“Amene [Aminian’s mother], who is one of the bravest members of our family, wailed loudly, but was determined to bring her baby home,” her relative Hali Norei told The Guardian.

“She picked her up in her arms and was forced to steal her own child’s body; she drove back home with her on her lap.”

Families of dead protesters are being forced to fork out large sums of money in return for the bodies of their loved ones, multiple sources told BBC Persia.

At least 2,435 people have been killed in a fortnight of protests across the country.

One person said security forces demanded 700 million tomans ($5,000 or £3,700) to release the body of their loved one, being held at Poursina Hospital.

A family in Tehran said they were asked to pay a billion tomans ($7,000 or £5,200) for their loved one, a Kurdish seasonal construction worker.

They were unable to afford the cost with construction workers earning around $100 a month, according to the report.

Ahead of the emergency UN Security Council meeting on Thursday, Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi and secretary-general Antonio Guterres spoke by phone to discuss the recent deadly protests and Iran's request for the world body to do more to condemn what they call foreign influence in the Islamic Republic, according to a readout of the call posted on Iranian state TV.

The semiofficial Tasnim news agency reported that Araghchi implored the top UN official to live up to the "serious expectation" that Iran's government and its people have of the UN's role in condemning what the officials called "illegal US interventions against Iran".

Masih Alinejad, one of the most vocal Iranian dissidents in the US, accused the United Nations and the Security Council of failing "to respond with the urgency this moment demands" at the emergency UN Security Council meeting on Thursday.

In October, two purported Russian mobsters were each sentenced to 25 years behind bars for hiring a hitman to kill Alinejad at her Brooklyn home on behalf of the Iranian government.

Sitting across the table from the Iranian ambassador to the UN, Alinejad, who came after an invitation from the US, said that "the members of this body have forgotten the privilege and responsibility of sitting in this room".

In a stunning moment, even for Security Council standards, Alinejad addressed the Islamic Republic's representative seated at the council directly.

"You have tried to kill me three times. I have seen my would-be assassin with my own eyes in front of my garden, in my home in Brooklyn," she said while the Iranian official looked directly ahead, without acknowledging her.

The Pentagon is preparing to deploy additional US troops and military equipment to the Middle East as tensions in the region remain elevated.

According to NBC News, which cited a US official, the planned reinforcements include a carrier strike group, extra aircraft and land-based air defence systems. The deployments are intended to strengthen the American military footprint already in place.

Satellite imagery analysed earlier by digital investigations journalist Ben van der Merwe appeared to show the USS Abraham Lincoln moving towards the Middle East, suggesting preparations were already under way before the latest report.

The move comes as Donald Trump weighs his next steps in response to the situation in the region. The official told the network that the additional forces are designed both to bolster deterrence and to ensure US forces are ready to respond if Iran targets American assets or allies.

The Pentagon expects the equipment, along with thousands of additional personnel, to arrive over the coming days and weeks, the official added.

The UN warned possible military strikes on Iran would add "volatility to an already combustible situation" during an emergency meeting of the Security Council on Thursday.

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres "urges maximum restraint at this sensitive moment and calls on all actors to refrain from any actions that could lead to further loss of life or ignite a wider regional escalation," assistant secretary-general Martha Pobee said at the meeting.

Guterres remains convinced that all issues regarding Iran, including its nuclear program, should be addressed through diplomacy and dialogue, she said.

The UN chief reaffirms the UN Charter's principles that disputes must be settled peacefully and prohibit the threat or use of force, Pobee said.

The United States stands by the “brave people of Iran,” and President Donald Trump "has made it clear all options are on the table to stop the slaughter," US ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz told the UN Security Council on Thursday.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to intervene in support of protesters in Iran, where thousands of people have been reported killed in a crackdown on the protests against clerical rule.

But on Thursday, Trump adopted a wait‑and‑see posture, saying he had been told that the killings were easing and that he believed there was no current plan for large-scale executions.

Waltz dismissed allegations by Iran that the protests are "a foreign plot to give a precursor to military action”.

"Everyone in the world needs to know that the regime is weaker than ever before, and therefore is putting forward this lie because of the power of the Iranian people in the streets. They are afraid. They're afraid of their own people," Waltz said.

Iran's deputy UN ambassador Gholamhossein Darzi said Iran does not seek escalation or confrontation and accused Waltz of resorting "to lies, distortion of facts, and a deliberate misinformation campaign to conceal his country’s direct involvement in steering unrest in Iran to violence”.

Iranian-American activist Masih Alinejad told an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council that the Islamic Republic is behaving like the Islamic State militant group, "and deserves to be treated like" the group.

She said: "That is how you save innocent lives."She warned the "brutal slaughter" in Iran will get much worse if the world doesn't take "serious action".

Alinejad said all Iranians are united in seeking freedom and in the face of Iranian weapons they want action, not "empty words and empty condemnations".