U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman amid strained relations between Riyadh and Washington.

Blinken's trip, his second to Saudi Arabia since becoming America's top diplomat, comes after the kingdom under Prince Mohammed has been more willing to disregard the U.S. in striking its own decisions. Riyadh has clashed repeatedly with President Joe Biden on its supply of crude oil to global markets, its willingness to partner with Russia in OPEC+ and reaching a détente with Iran mediated by China. Biden also pledged to make Saudi Arabia a "pariah" over the 2018 killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

Hundreds of Palestinians gathered Tuesday for the funeral of a three-year-old boy who died after being shot by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank last week.

Mohammed al-Tamimi died in an Israeli hospital Monday, after Israeli soldiers shot him and his father on Thursday night in the village of Nabi Saleh, near the West Bank city of Ramallah.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken heads to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to strengthen strained ties with the long-time ally as the oil-rich kingdom forges closer relations with America's rivals.

Blinken's three-day trip will also focus on efforts to end conflicts in Sudan and Yemen, the joint battle against the Islamic State group and the Arab world's relations with Israel.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to boost cooperation Tuesday after an Egyptian policeman shot dead three Israeli soldiers before being killed, officials said.

Sisi received a telephone call from Netanyahu about Saturday's deadly violence on the normally calm border, the spokesman for the Egyptian president said.

The International Atomic Energy Agency will "never politicize" its work in Iran, the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said, insisting after Israel's prime minister accused it of capitulating to Iranian pressure that his agency has been "very fair but firm."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's comments came after a confidential report from the IAEA last week said that its investigators had closed off their investigation of traces of man-made uranium found at Marivan, near the city of Abadeh, about 525 kilometers (325 miles) southeast of Tehran.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that the expansion of Israeli settlements and ongoing demolitions of Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank are taking Israel further away from peace with the Palestinians.

Yet, he stressed that the U.S.-Israel relationship remains "iron-clad," lauded American security commitments to the Jewish state and said the Biden administration will continue to promote normalization between Israel and its Arab neighbors, particularly with Saudi Arabia.

Polls opened on Tuesday in Kuwait's seventh general election in just over a decade, following repeated political crises that have undermined parliament and stalled reforms.

More than 793,000 eligible voters will have the chance to determine the make-up of the 50-seat legislature in the only Gulf Arab state to have an elected parliament with powers to hold government to account.

The labor minister of Qatar, which faced intense scrutiny over its treatment of migrant workers in the run-up to last year's World Cup soccer tournament, was elected Monday as the president of the United Nations labor agency's annual conference.

Asian and Pacific nations proposed Ali bin Samikh al-Marri to lead the International Labor Agency's two-week conference in Geneva. Regional groups take turns nominating the meeting's chair.

A 3-year-old Palestinian boy who was shot by Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank last week died of his wounds, Israeli hospital officials said Monday.

Mohammed al-Tamimi was shot in the head last Thursday near his village of Nebi Saleh while riding in a car with his father. He was airlifted to Israel's Sheba Hospital, which announced the boy's death.

Iran is set to reopen its embassy in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday following a seven year closure, Tehran and a diplomatic source said, sealing a Chinese-brokered rapprochement deal announced in March.

Saudi Arabia severed relations with Iran in 2016 after its embassy in Tehran and consulate in the northwestern city of Mashhad were attacked during protests over Riyadh's execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr.