The dramatic weekend assault on two Saudi oil facilities saw one of the targets struck four times sparking fires that took five hours to extinguish, the national oil company said Friday.

As the United States and Israel escalate their push to contain Iranian influence in the Middle East, countries in Tehran's orbit are feeling the heat.

Pro-Iranian militias across Lebanon, Syria and Iraq are being targeted, both with economic sanctions and precision airstrikes hitting their bases and infrastructure. This is putting the governments that host them in the crosshairs of an escalating confrontation and raising the prospect of open conflict.

Yemen's Huthi rebels accused Saudi Arabia and its allies on Friday of endangering a fragile truce around Hodeida with strikes on four rebel targets north of the key aid port.

Near-complete official results Friday confirmed a deadlock in Israel's general election this week, putting Benny Gantz's party as the largest but without an obvious path to form a majority coalition.

The Saudi-led coalition said it launched a military operation against Tehran-linked Yemeni rebels Thursday, in its first known strike since an attack on the kingdom's oil industry that was blamed on Iran.

Former Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the first leader to be toppled by the Arab Spring revolts, died Thursday in Saudi Arabia, Tunisia's foreign ministry told AFP. He was 83.

Samir Farig had never thought of voting for Israel's Arab political parties before, but he did this week, joining a wave of support that helped deliver a breakthrough.

Israelis were contending with the prospect of a third election on Thursday, two days after an unprecedented repeat election left the country's two main political parties deadlocked, with neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor his rivals holding a clear path to a coalition government.

While weeks of negotiations to form a coalition government lay ahead, conditions set by the parties could hobble the task within the allotted time, prompting a never-before held third election.

The United Nations has clinched a deal between Syrian stakeholders on the line-up of a committee tasked with drafting a new constitution for the war-ravaged country, the UN chief said Wednesday.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Thursday that a claim by Yemeni rebels that they carried out attacks on two Saudi oil facilities "lacks credibility".