Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Monday said two "deviant" oil tankers exploded after passing through the Strait of Hormuz.

The IRGC said the ships exploded after they tried to enter and exit the strait through an "unsafe route," according to the state-run Fars News Agency. The outlet added that the tankers were "instigated and forced by the United States" to enter the strait and violate the designated routes through the crucial waterway.

"If they break their oaths after their covenant and attack your religion, then fight the leaders of disbelief; indeed, they have no oaths; perhaps they will cease," the IRGC said in its statement, quoting the Quran.

The IRGC added that "this is our land" and that the "terrorist American army from thousands of kilometers away has no legal legitimacy and will definitely be confronted."

The IRGC's claim comes after Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen said they were imposing a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia, Reuters reported. Iran had called on the Houthis to block the Bab el-Mandeb Strait linking to the Red Sea if the U.S. continued to pummel Iran's electrical infrastructure.

The Houthis said they declared "a maritime embargo against the criminal Saudi ⁠enemy, based on the equation of 'an eye for an eye,' effective immediately," according to a statement to Reuters.

Closing the Bab el-Mandeb Strait would cut down the world's oil supply by 7 percent and leave most Saudi oil exports unable to exit the Middle East, the outlet reported. It would add to the disrupted flow of oil out of the Persian Gulf, which has seen a 10 percent reduction since the war began.

Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz after the IRGC and the U.S. resumed hostilities last week, casting aside the interim deal signed by the U.S. and Iran to reopen the strait and lower heightened gas prices.

One senior Iranian official told Reuters on Monday that officials in Tehran received a proposal from mediators for a 10-day ceasefire to salvage the deal.

Both countries have suggested continuing toward the path of diplomacy, even as the U.S. concluded its ninth consecutive night of strikes.

U.S. Central Command on Sunday stated that it wrapped up its latest round of strikes on Iranian military command centers, air defense and coastal surveillance sites, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites, and communications networks.

Strikes on Iran also intensified after two U.S. service members were killed in strikes in Jordan, which also left one service member missing. A "controlled detonation" from a downed Iranian one-way attack drone in northern Iraq killed a third service member over the weekend.

The latest death brings the number of U.S. service members killed in the conflict to 17.

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