Iran delegation arrives in Saudi amid thaw between regional powers

An Iranian delegation arrived in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, Tehran said, to pave the way for reopening diplomatic missions as the Gulf rivals prepare to normalize relations, seven years after an acrimonious split.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan has spoken by phone with Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman amid signs that the Saudis and Iran-allied Houthis in Yemen are making "remarkable progress" toward finding a permanent end to their nine-year conflict, according to the Biden administration.

The crown prince, often referred to by his initials MBS, has had a strained relationship with President Joe Biden over human rights and oil production concerns. But the de facto Saudi leader and the president's top national security adviser decided to talk amid encouraging signs on winding down the long and bloody war, a top priority for Biden.

A prisoner exchange involving hundreds of detainees from Yemen's brutal civil war will start on Thursday, a Yemeni government official said, against a backdrop of rising hopes for peace.

Nearly 900 prisoners, most of whom were fighting with Huthi rebels, will be flown between Yemen and Saudi Arabia, which leads the military coalition fighting on behalf of the ousted government, the official said on Tuesday.

U.S. spies caught Russian intelligence officers boasting that they had convinced the oil-rich United Arab Emirates "to work together against US and UK intelligence agencies," according to a purported American document posted online as part of a major U.S. intelligence breach.

U.S. officials declined to comment on the document, which bore known top-secret markings and was viewed by The Associated Press. The Emirati government on Monday dismissed any accusation that the UAE had deepened ties with Russian intelligence as "categorically false."

Two people are missing after torrential rainfall caused flooding in southern Israel, police said Tuesday.

The emergency services said that they had stepped up operations to rescue holidaymakers caught by floods during a peak travel period, as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan coincides with Jewish Passover and Christian Easter.

Thousands of Israelis led by at least seven Cabinet ministers marched Monday to an evacuated West Bank settlement, in a defiant signal that Israel's most right-wing government in history is determined to accelerate settlement building on occupied lands despite international opposition.

The mass rally also threatened to further raise tensions that have been heightened by days of unrest across the region over a contested Jerusalem holy site. In new violence, Israeli troops killed a 15-year-old Palestinian boy during an arrest raid in the occupied West Bank, while a 48-year-old Israeli woman died of wounds sustained in an attack last week that killed two of her daughters.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to restore security "on all fronts" after surging violence that included rocket fire from Lebanon and Syria and two more deaths on Monday.

Netanyahu also reinstated the defense minister whose firing he announced last month.

Israeli forces killed one Palestinian and injured two others in a raid on a refugee camp near Jericho in the occupied West Bank on Monday, the Palestinian health ministry said.

The Israeli army said its forces were operating in the Aqabat Jaber camp near Jericho, without providing further details.

Iran's foreign ministry has said a delegation will visit Saudi Arabia by Friday to pave the way for reopening its diplomatic missions there following a similar move by Riyadh.

The announcement comes a day after a Saudi delegation arrived in Tehran on a similar diplomatic trip, and follows a historic meeting between the two Gulf countries' foreign ministers in China.

Saudi officials are in Yemen's capital for talks with the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, as part of international efforts to find a settlement to Yemen's nine-year conflict, officials said.

Saudi Arabia's delegation, chaired by the kingdom's ambassador to Yemen, Mohammed bin Saeed Al-Jaber, met with Mahdi al-Mashat, head of the Houthi's supreme political council, which runs rebel-held areas in Yemen, according to the Houthi-run SABA news agency.