By Gram Slattery

PALM BEACH, Florida, Jan 3 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump capped the holidays with an unprecedented strike on Venezuela, overseeing a surprise snatch-and-grab operation early on Saturday targeted at Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.

The dramatic mission punctuated a winter sojourn to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, filled with an unusual mix of activities that have become oddly typical for the unconventional president.

At least four people were killed in western Iran on Saturday in clashes between protesters and security forces, two rights groups said, accusing Revolutionary Guards of opening fire on demonstrators.

Protests carried on in several cities nationwide throughout Saturday, the seventh day of a movement sparked by anger over the rising cost of living in the Islamic republic.

The protests are the most significant in Iran since a 2022-2023 movement that authorities quelled with a crackdown that left hundreds dead and thousands arrested, according to activists.

When paramilitary fighters closed in on the Sudanese border town and oil field of Heglig, paraplegic Dowa Hamed could only cling to her husband's back as they fled, "like a child", she told AFP.

Now, the 25-year-old mother of five -- paralysed from the waist down -- lies shell-shocked on a cot in the Abu al-Naga displacement camp, a dusty transit centre just outside the eastern city of Gedaref, nearly 800 kilometres (500 miles) from home.

DUBAI, Jan 3 (Reuters) - Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed not to yield after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to come to the aid of protesters, as rights groups reported a sharp rise in arrests following days of unrest sparked by soaring inflation.

Speaking in a recorded appearance on television on Saturday, Khamenei said the Islamic Republic "will not yield to the enemy" and said rioters should be "put in their place".

Saudi-backed troops on Saturday retook the resource-rich Yemeni province of Hadramawt, Yemen's presidency said, after confrontations between forces backed by Riyadh and Abu Dhabi deepened a rift between the two Gulf allies.

The Saudis and Emiratis have long supported rival factions in Yemen's fractious government, and a December offensive by the UAE-backed secessionist Southern Transitional Council (STC) to capture Hadramawt had angered Riyadh and left the oil-rich regional powers on a collision course.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday acknowledged the economic demands of protesters in Iran, where demonstrations have spread to more than two dozen cities, even as he warned there would be no quarter for "rioters".

The protests began on Sunday as an expression of discontent over high prices and economic stagnation, but have since expanded to include political demands.

Iranian media have reported localised violence and vandalism in the west of the country in recent days.

DUBAI, Jan 3 (Reuters) - The United Arab Emirates said on Saturday it was deeply concerned by ongoing escalation in Yemen after Saudi-backed government forces swept into areas seized last month by UAE-backed southern separatists seeking independence.

The rapidly moving crisis in Yemen has opened a major feud between the two Gulf powers and fractured the coalition of forces, headed by the internationally recognised government, who are fighting the Iran-backed Houthi movement.

WASHINGTON, Jan 2 (Reuters) - UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is deeply concerned by Israel's announcement of a suspension of the operations of several international non-governmental organizations in occupied Palestinian territory and called for the measure to be reversed, according to a statement on Friday.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called on Friday for Israel to end a ban on humanitarian agencies that provided aid in Gaza, saying he was "deeply concerned" at the development.

Guterres "calls for this measure to be reversed, stressing that international non-governmental organizations are indispensable to life-saving humanitarian work and that the suspension risks undermining the fragile progress made during the ceasefire," his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.

Iran has been rocked this week by protests that started in Tehran and have spread to other cities, with at least six people killed in clashes with security forces.

Official media has largely played down the protests but videos have flooded social media, many of which are difficult to authenticate, or have even been manipulated.

Here is a recap of what we know and what analysts think it all means.

- What's going on? -

The protests began on Sunday in Tehran, where some shopkeepers went on strike over high prices and economic stagnation.