Saudi Arabia said early Tuesday it had launched overnight air raids against targets in Yemen in retaliation for a ballistic missile fired by Huthi rebels, destroying the launch site in Sanaa.

At least four civilians were killed and four more wounded Tuesday in a motorcycle bombing near a hospital in central Basra city in southern Iraq, security forces said.

Referring to "the explosion of a motorcycle", they said in a statement that "four citizens were killed and four others injured while two vehicles near the motorcycle caught fire".

An Israeli air strike hit a shipment of Iranian weapons in the Syrian port of Latakia Tuesday, in the first such attack on the key facility, a war monitor said.

Iran on Monday accused France of "destabilizing" the Gulf region after Paris signed a record 14-billion-euro deal with the United Arab Emirates for 80 Rafale fighter jets.

Iran expressed hopes Monday to turn the page in its ties with the United Arab Emirates during a rare visit by a senior official from the Gulf Arab country.

An apartment building collapsed in a southern Egyptian province on Monday, killing at least three children, the country's state-run media reported.

Rescue teams retrieved at least nine injured from the rubble of the two-story building in the district of Ihnasiya in Beni Suef province, around 111 kilometers (69 miles) south of Cairo, according to the daily Al-Ahram.

A 16-year-old Palestinian rammed a vehicle into an Israeli checkpoint in the West Bank overnight, wounding a security guard before being shot and "neutralized" at the scene, the Israeli Defense Ministry said Monday.

Israeli media reported that the alleged attacker was killed, while a ministry official declined to comment further. Defense Minister Benny Gantz praised the security forces' response and wished a speedy recovery to the guard, who has been hospitalized.

The national security adviser of the United Arab Emirates met Monday with Iran's hard-line president in Tehran, a major visit for the Gulf Arab federation that has long viewed the Islamic Republic as its main regional threat.

The visit by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan comes as the Emirates and Saudi Arabia are both negotiating with Iran amid efforts in Vienna to save Tehran's tattered nuclear deal with world powers.

Saudi Arabia's crown prince was heading Monday to Oman, the first stop of a tour of Gulf Arab states that will see him meet neighboring rulers and allies as the kingdom closely watches negotiations in Europe to revive Iran's nuclear deal with world powers.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's visit coincides with a flurry of other diplomatic meetings in the region, including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's visit to ally Qatar and a visit by a high-ranking security official from the United Arab Emirates to Iran. Confirmed by Saudi and Omani media, the tour also comes ahead of an upcoming annual six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council meeting of rulers this month.

Israeli authorities have freed a prominent Palestinian prisoner, two weeks after striking a release deal that ended his marathon 131-day hunger strike, said a prisoner rights group.

Kayed Fasfous, 32, had remained in an Israeli hospital since ending his strike on Nov. 23. He was the symbolic figurehead of six hunger strikers protesting Israel's controversial policy of "administrative detention," which allows suspects to be held indefinitely without charge.