Deep in Iraq's southern desert, bulldozers and earthmovers spread layers of moist clay over sand dunes as part of a broader effort to fight increasingly frequent sandstorms.

Iraq has long suffered from sand and dust storms, but in recent years they have become more frequent and intense as the country falls prey to the effects of climate change.

ROME, Dec 27 (Reuters) - Italian prosecutors said on Saturday they had arrested nine people on suspicion of financing Hamas through charities based in Italy, in an operation coordinated by anti-mafia and anti-terrorism units.

The suspects are accused of "belonging to and having financed" the Palestinian group, which the European Union designates as a terrorist organisation, prosecutors in the northern Italian city of Genoa said in a statement.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to meet US President Donald Trump in Florida on Monday, an Israeli official told AFP, in what is seen as a crucial visit for the next steps of the fragile Gaza truce plan.

It will be Netanyahu's fifth visit to see key ally Trump in the United States this year.

His trip comes as the Trump administration and regional mediators push to proceed to the second stage of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The Saudi-led coalition warned Saturday it would back Yemen's government in any military confrontation with separatist forces, as Riyadh urged them to withdraw "peacefully" from recently-seized provinces.

The statements came a day after reported Saudi air strikes on separatist positions in Yemen's Hadramawt province -- and after Washington called for restraint in the rapidly escalating conflict.

General Turki al-Malki, the spokesman for the coalition, warned of intervention if efforts to de-escalate the situation failed because of the separatists' actions.

CAIRO, Dec 27 (Reuters) - Yemen's Saudi-led coalition said any military moves by the main southern separatist group STC in the eastern province of Hadramout contrary to de-escalation efforts will be dealt with to protect civilians, the Saudi state news agency reported on Saturday.

Somalia and the African Union reacted angrily Friday after Israel became the first country to formally recognise the northern region of Somaliland as an independent state.

Somaliland declared independence from Somalia in 1991 and has pushed for international recognition for decades, with president Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi making it a top priority since taking office last year.

LONDON, Dec 26 (Reuters) - High-profile activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, who was released from prison after an Egyptian presidential pardon in September, has arrived in Britain, the Egyptian-British campaigner's family and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Friday.

Abd el-Fattah, 44, has become Egypt's most prominent political prisoner after spending much of his adult life in and out of detention due to his activism, and a rare symbol of opposition to a far-reaching crackdown under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

(Fixes spelling in "breakaway" in headline)

Dec 26 (Reuters) - Israel has recognised Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia, as an "independent and sovereign state," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday, making Israel the first country to do so.

(Reporting by Maayan Lubell and George Obulutsa, Editing by Louise Heavens)

JERUSALEM, Dec 26 (Reuters) - A Palestinian assailant ran over a man and stabbed a woman and killed them both in northern Israel on Friday, Israeli emergency services said.

The assailant, from the occupied West Bank, was shot and wounded by a civilian at the scene and taken to hospital, the Israeli police said in a statement.

"This was a rolling terror attack," the police added.

JERUSALEM, Dec 26 (Reuters) - An Israeli reservist soldier rammed his vehicle into a Palestinian man as he prayed on a roadside in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, after earlier firing shots in the area, the Israeli military said.

"Footage was received of an armed individual running over a Palestinian individual," it said in a statement, adding the individual was a reservist and his military service had been terminated.

The reservist acted "in severe violation of his authority" and his weapon had been confiscated, the military said.