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.

DAMASCUS, Dec 26 (Reuters) - Eight people were killed in an explosion at a mosque of the Alawite minority sect in the Syrian city of Homs on Friday, Syrian state news agency SANA said.

An ultra-conservative Sunni Muslim Syrian group known as Saraya Ansar al-Sunnah said on its Telegram channels that it carried out the attack. The group previously claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at a Damascus church in June that killed 20 people.

(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.

An explosion killed at least eight worshippers at a mosque in a predominantly Alawite area of Syria's Homs on Friday, state media said, with an Islamist militant group claiming responsibility.

The attack during Friday prayers is the latest on the Alawite community, and the second blast in a place of worship since Islamist authorities took power a year ago, after a suicide bombing in a Damascus church killed 25 people in June.

DUBAI, Dec 26 (Reuters) - The United Arab Emirates welcomes Saudi Arabian efforts to support security and stability in Yemen and remains committed to backing stability in the country, the UAE’s foreign ministry said on Friday.

Yemen's main southern separatist group, the Southern Transitional Council (STC), which is supported by Abu Dhabi, has pushed the Saudi-backed, internationally recognised government from its headquarters in Aden while claiming broad control across the south earlier this month.

Saint Peter's, one of the world's oldest rock churches, is a sacred rallying point for the isolated Christians still left in quake-hit Antakya in southeastern Turkey, the city known in ancient times as Antioch.

"Since the earthquake, our community has scattered," said worshipper Mari Ibri.

"Those who remain are trying to regroup. We each had our own church but, like mine, they have been destroyed."

By Joshua McElwee

VATICAN CITY, Dec 25 (Reuters) - Pope Leo decried conditions for Palestinians in Gaza in his Christmas sermon on Thursday, in an unusually direct appeal during what is normally a solemn, spiritual service on the day Christians across the globe celebrate the birth of Jesus.

Leo, the first U.S. pope, said the story of Jesus being born in a stable showed that God had "pitched his fragile tent" among the people of the world.

"How, then, can we not think of the tents in Gaza, exposed for weeks to rain, wind and cold?" he asked.

By Cordelia Hsu

SYDNEY, Dec 25 (Reuters) - Christmas celebrations were muted at Sydney's famed Bondi Beach on Thursday in the aftermath of a terror attack that killed 15 people there more than a week ago, as the community continued to grapple with the country's deadliest mass shooting in nearly three decades.

Police patrolled across the beachfront in Bondi, a traditional Christmas destination, as hundreds of people, many wearing Santa hats, gathered on the sands.