Iran's Arabic-language state TV network Al Alam said on Sunday its Twitter account had been hacked and a false report was posted that an Iran-allied rebel leader in Yemen had died.
Gulf Arab countries and Jordan want the United Nations Security Council to blacklist the son of Yemen's former president and a Houthi militia leader and effectively impose an arms embargo on the rebels that rule most of the poor Arabian peninsula country.
China's foreign ministry added its support on Tuesday to calls for a ceasefire in Yemen, after Russia and the Red Cross appealed for a military pause to allow humanitarian aid deliveries and the evacuation of civilians.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Saturday three shipments of aid and medical staff it is trying to send to Yemen were still blocked, despite appeals to the Saudi-led military coalition which controls Yemeni air space and ports.
Saudi troops clashed with Yemeni Houthi fighters on Tuesday in the heaviest exchange of cross-border fire since the start of a Saudi-led air offensive last week, while Yemen's foreign minister called for a rapid Arab intervention on the ground.
A high-level Pakistani defense delegation was about to leave for Saudi Arabia on Monday as the government in Islamabad considers whether to join a Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen.
Arab leaders at a summit in Egypt announced the formation of a unified military force to counter growing security threats from Yemen to Libya, and as regional heavyweights Saudi Arabia and Iran engage in sectarian proxy wars.
Saudi Arabia's navy evacuated dozens of diplomats from Yemen on Saturday and the United Nations pulled out international staff after a third night of Saudi-led air strikes trying to stem advances by Iranian-allied Houthi fighters.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has called on all sides in a widening conflict in Yemen to obey the rules of war, voicing concern at reports of civilian casualties following Saudi-led air strikes.
Warplanes from Saudi Arabia and Arab allies struck Shi'ite Muslim rebels fighting to oust Yemen's president on Thursday, a gamble by the world's top oil exporter to check Iranian influence in its backyard without direct military backing from Washington.
The Arab League will discuss the crisis in Yemen on Thursday, the regional body's deputy secretary general said, after the country's foreign minister called on Arab states to intervene militarily to halt an advance by the Shi'ite Houthi militia.
Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi accused the Iranian-allied Houthi militia on Saturday of staging a coup against him and appealed to the United Nations for “urgent intervention”, even as the United States evacuated its remaining forces.
The United Nations Security Council on Sunday demanded Iranian-backed Houthi militia in Yemen withdraw from government institutions, called for an end to foreign interference and threatened "further steps" if the violence does not stop.
Yemenis in the capital Sanaa and the central city of Taiz held the largest protests yet against a takeover by a Shi'ite Muslim militia group on Wednesday after the United States, Britain and France shut their embassies over security fears.
By rapidly appointing two heirs, Saudi Arabia's King Salman has pressed pause on "succession Sudoku", as one leading local journalist calls speculation over whose star is rising and whose waning in the large and secretive Al Saud ruling family.
The United States is closing its embassy in Yemen, the Arabian peninsula state that is a front line in Washington's war against al Qaeda, embassy employees and U.S. officials said on Tuesday.
A bomb exploded outside the republican palace in the Yemeni capital Sanaa on Saturday and wounded three Shi'ite Muslim militiamen guarding it, eyewitnesses said.
The leader of Yemen's Houthis who control the capital Sanaa said on Tuesday his group was seeking a peaceful transfer of power after the resignation of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, and urged all factions to work together to solve the crisis.
The turmoil hitting Saudi Arabia's neighbor Yemen will pose the first big test for King Salman, and provide a glimpse as to whether his approach to hotspots in a fragmenting region will differ from that of his late brother.
