Saudi Arabian military spokesperson Col. Turki al-Maliki said on Thursday that Saudi air defenses "intercepted and destroyed" a ballistic missile launched by the Houthi rebels from Yemen toward the Medina region.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) Centre reported an attack on a tanker in the Persian Gulf late on Wednesday night.

"A tanker has been struck by two unidentified projectiles," the UKMTO notice issued on Thursday morning said. The incident occurred around 50 nautical miles north of the Qatari city of Madinat ash Shamal, it added.

"The status of the crew, damage assessment and environmental impact are unconfirmed at present," it added.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei said on Wednesday that U.S. military and soft power had suffered an "irreversible decline" in the ongoing conflict with Tehran in the Middle East.

In a series of statements posted to Telegram, Khamenei -- who has not been seen in public since the start of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran in February -- said that American "unhindered presence and dominance in the region is nothing more than a pipe dream."

The statements were released on Wednesday to mark the 47th anniversary of the storming of the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979.

"Currently, the scene in the Persian Gulf, particularly the Strait of Hormuz, continues to demonstrate the fallacy of the myth of American invincibility," Khamenei's statements read. Iran's response to the U.S. attack, he added, "represented an initial act of defiance against global arrogance on a regional scale, which will take on a much larger dimension if these transgressions are repeated."

"The slightest inclination towards surrender will embolden the arrogant enemy," Khamenei said, urging stronger deterrence measures by Tehran.

Anyone with "even the slightest hope" that the U.S. would change its approach "through partisan or factional shifts" is "seriously mistaken," he continued.

"The power and hegemony of the United States, in both its hard military power and its soft international influence, have suffered an irreversible decline, and the process of its collapse is accelerating," Khamenei said, describing the damage as "self-inflicted."

Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf suggested in a post to X on Wednesday morning that the midterm election results indicated the opposition of American voters to the ongoing war with Iran.

"Conscience or the cost of living, Americans said NO TO WAR, and we endorse this message," Ghalibaf wrote.

"If the US govt betrays their public will to serve international paymasters and blackmailers, it will learn our NO comes with a Nightmare," he added.