The U.N. envoy for Yemen said Tuesday he met with Houthi negotiators over the weekend in efforts to avert further escalation in Yemen amid fierce battles on the country's western coast between the Iran-backed Houthis and the Saudi-supported, but fragmented, government forces.

The renewed violence, which has killed hundreds and displaced tens of thousands, is the latest twist in Yemen's conflict, which began in 2014 when the Iran-backed rebels took over the capital, Sanaa, forcing the country's government to settle into exile in Saudi Arabia. The kingdom entered the war a year later with a multinational coalition.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday said there were "indications" that Israel's enemies could try to attack ahead of elections scheduled for the end of October, without giving details.

"We have indications that ahead of the elections our enemies will try to attack us. So... I am sending you a message: Don't mess with us, not now and not ever. Our long arm will reach you anywhere, anytime," Netanyahu said at an air force base, according to a video published by his office.

The United States has granted Iraqi airlines a sanctions waiver allowing them to fly Iranian pilgrims in and out of the Iraqi city of Najaf, holy to Shia Muslims, an Iraqi government official and an airport source told AFP.

The Iraqi government had on Saturday said it was in talks with the U.S. to seek such an exemption after sanctions on Iran's aviation sector took effect.

More than 100 Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank early Tuesday, drawing rare Israeli government condemnation after they injured three members of the security forces.

The raid, along with another attack on a different West Bank village on Tuesday, comes amid mounting international criticism of settler violence, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu downplayed in an address last week to the United Nations.

Gen. Hossein Mohebbi, spokesman for the Revolutionary Guard, held a news conference dubbed “A letter to the American people” in Tehran, Iran's capital.

He said that the only way for the war to end is for Washington to admit defeat and leave — a message apparently meant for the U.S. public just weeks ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections for the U.S. Senate and Congress.

Syria early on Tuesday said an explosion caused by sabotage on an eastern gas pipeline the night before halted the flow of gas to power stations.

"A fire broke out Monday evening in a gas pipeline between the Al-Shoula area and Deir Ezzor due to the explosion of a sectional valve caused by sabotage," the official SANA news agency said.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said he expected a formal answer on Tuesday from the United States to Tehran's proposal to open the Strait of Hormuz, state media reported.

Qatari intermediaries "presented ideas, and we discussed them; they are set to raise the matter with the American side once more, after which the final U.S. response will be conveyed to us", Araghchi said late Monday.

The UAE's vice president will visit Saudi Arabia on Tuesday following an invitation from the defense minister, state media said, for a rare high-level meeting amid a months-long rift over Yemen.

In July, top officials and ministers from both countries began posting messages on social media about friendship and unity, signaling a rapprochement months after a public fallout over the UAE's role in Yemen.

Iran's chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said Tuesday that if his country's security was not guaranteed, no infrastructure in the region would be safe from attack, state media reported.

"In a region where we cannot sell oil, no one else will sell oil either; or if our security is not guaranteed, no infrastructure will remain safe," said Ghalibaf, who is also Iran's parliament speaker, according to video released by state TV.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, has praised his country’s fighters for allegedly preventing "enemy forces" from "roaming freely" in the Strait of Hormuz.

Khamenei said in a message carried by the state broadcaster on Monday that Iran’s enemies now "do not come" closer to the strait than the Arabian Sea, which is part of the Indian Ocean.