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Iran War Latest: Tehran Talks Go On as Houthis Fire and Israel Votes

Iran and the Mecca pact states agreed to keep talking as Houthi missiles targeted Saudi Arabia and Israel voted. What changed in the Iran war and what’s next.

ByPeter
Empty ornate conference table with microphones and flag stands, a city skyline and missile trails visible at dusk
AI-generated illustration

TEHRAN / RIYADH, Oct. 27, 2026 — Iran and the three members of the Mecca defense pact ended their first joint meeting in Tehran with an agreement to keep talking, while Houthi missiles and drones kept flying at Saudi Arabia and Israelis voted in an election shaped by the Iran war. The three tracks are now running at the same time, and each one can change the others within days.

This article looks at where the war stands after Monday’s talks. For the hour-by-hour detail of the envoys’ arrival and the weekend’s strikes, see our Oct. 26 Middle East War Room report.

What the Tehran talks produced

The meeting was hosted by Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, and joined by Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman, Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, and Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin. According to Iranian state media, as reported by Al Jazeera and Reuters, the four countries “agreed to continue the dialogue to strengthen cooperation amongst the four regional countries, including for peace and security in the region.” No date for a second round and no concrete steps were announced.

Turkey’s state news agency Anadolu, citing security sources, said the visitors also met President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, and that the agenda covered Palestine, Lebanon, the Strait of Hormuz, Yemen and U.S.-Iran negotiations. A Pakistani official told Reuters that Munir, who the official said had President Trump’s blessing to pursue diplomacy, presented a proposal meant to offer something to both Washington and Tehran, and that the pact states and Qatar could act as guarantors if it were accepted. The official gave no details, so the proposal’s terms remain unknown.

The tone from Tehran was mixed. Rezaei spoke of a “new and positive atmosphere” in the region. A day earlier, Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said at his weekly briefing that “the American side is not serious about negotiations,” according to Anadolu, citing IRNA. He also said the conflict in Yemen should be settled between Saudi Arabia and Yemen and that Iran was ready to help.

Houthi fire continues during the diplomacy

The talks did not pause the attacks on Saudi Arabia. In the early hours of Tuesday, coalition spokesman Maj. Gen. Turki Al-Malki said air defenses intercepted and destroyed three ballistic missiles fired toward the Eastern Region, according to the Saudi Press Agency. He said four drones aimed at the south were also downed, Arab News reported. No casualties were reported.

On the ground in Yemen, the Saudi-backed government said its forces carried out 1,276 strikes on Houthi targets in 24 hours on Monday, with fierce fighting around Taiz. That figure is the government’s own claim and has not been independently verified.

The U.S. government is treating the risk as serious. The State Department ordered non-emergency U.S. government employees and their families to leave Saudi Arabia effective Oct. 23, and the U.S. Mission in Saudi Arabia says Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport has only partially reopened. The mission also warns that Saudi law bars filming or sharing images of interceptions and impact sites.

Hormuz: open lanes, unresolved terms

At sea, U.S. Central Command said its commander, Adm. Brad Cooper, flew over the Strait of Hormuz on Oct. 25. CENTCOM said more than 3,000 commercial vessels have transited the strait with U.S. support over six months and that U.S. forces have helped Gulf partners export more than 1.5 billion barrels of crude since summer. Iran’s position is that full reopening depends on its own conditions, including an end to the U.S. naval blockade of its ports and relief from oil sanctions.

Shipping risk has not disappeared. The UK Maritime Trade Operations center reported a vessel on fire about 63 nautical miles southeast of al-Faw, Iraq, on Tuesday; the cause had not been reported.

Israel votes with Iran at the center

Israelis went to the polls on Tuesday. Polls published Friday showed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a close race with former military chief Gadi Eisenkot, with neither bloc projected to reach the 61 seats needed for a majority, the BBC reported. Exit polls are due at 10 p.m. Israel time (4 p.m. ET).

Israeli and U.S. media reports in the final days said Netanyahu pushed for new military action against Iran before the vote. Netanyahu denied those reports. Israel continues to strike Gaza almost daily despite last year’s ceasefire, saying it targets Hamas operatives; Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry puts the death toll since the war began at more than 74,000. In Lebanon, the Israeli military said it fired an interceptor at a suspicious aerial target over the south on Oct. 25.

Analysis: Peter’s World’s view

Analysis: The Tehran meeting matters less for what it decided than for who was in the room. Saudi Arabia is both a target of Houthi fire and a party to talks with the Houthis’ main backer, and its two pact partners have pledged to defend it. That gives Riyadh a channel to Tehran that does not run through Washington, while the reported U.S. blessing for Munir’s effort keeps Washington connected to it.

The weak point is sequencing. The Houthi launches show that a diplomatic channel to Iran does not yet translate into restraint in Yemen, and Baghaei’s framing of Yemen as a Saudi-Yemeni matter suggests Tehran will not accept responsibility for it at the table. Until the guarantor proposal is published, it is too early to call this a peace track.

Israel’s result is the near-term swing factor. A long coalition fight would keep a caretaker government in charge during a period when any strike on Iran would land on the same region the Mecca pact is trying to calm.

What to watch

  • Whether Iran and the pact states set a date for a second round, and whether Munir’s proposal is made public.
  • Whether Houthi launches at Saudi Arabia slow after the talks.
  • Israeli exit polls Tuesday night and the soldiers’ vote count on Wednesday.
  • Any U.S. response to the guarantor idea, and the status of the blockade of Iranian ports.

For the war’s running totals, see the Iran War Tracker and our Iran news hub.

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