The war sparked by the joint US-Israeli attack on Iran, and which has spread across the Middle East, has cost Arab countries $186 billion, a top UN official has said as he calls for an immediate halt to the fighting, AFP reports.

“We hope the fighting will stop tomorrow, as every day of delay has negative repercussions on the global economy,” UN assistant secretary-general Abdallah Al Dardari has told reporters in Amman.

“We estimate that the loss to the Arab region’s GDP as a result of one month of fighting will be around six per cent … 6pc of GDP means the region has lost around $186bn from its economy in a single month,” he said.

Al Dardari, who is also a top UN official for the Arab region, said the countries of the oil-rich Gulf were shouldering the heaviest burden.

“The impact on GDP is very significant in the Gulf region, where it could reach $168bn, and in the Levant region, where it could reach around $30bn,” he said.

Al Dardari warned against the Gulf’s economic dependence on oil, saying the crisis around the vital waterway of the Strait of Hormuz had proved the need to diversify.

He also said there was a need to seek out routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas flowed pre-war.