Saudi Arabia's stock market fell sharply on Monday to drop for a fourth straight session as geopolitical concerns in the Gulf region weighed, while Egypt's blue-chip index also extended its losing streak.

Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi movement attacked Abha airport in southern Saudi Arabia on Sunday, killing one person and wounding 21 others, the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said.

Long-time foes Iran and the U.S. have also come the closest in years to a direct military confrontation in the past week with the shooting down of a U.S. drone by Iran. U.S. President Donald Trump aborted a retaliatory strike minutes before impact. 

Saudi's index fell 1.6% with 10 of its 11 banks slipping. Al Rajhi Bank dropped 2.3%, while the kingdom's biggest petrochemical maker Saudi Basic Industries 2010.SE was down 2.7%.

Telecommunications operator Zain Saudi plunged 6.7% after a sale and leaseback of its communication towers was cancelled as the buyer IHS Holding was denied a licence from the telecoms regulator. 

Egypt's blue-chip index lost 1.1%, its fifth consecutive session of losses since closing higher on June 17, the day Egypt's first democratically elected president Mohamed Mursi died while on trial in a Cairo court.

There have been calls for an inquiry into Mursi's death from many organisations, including Amnesty International and the U.N. Human Rights office. 

The country's largest lender, Commercial International Bank , traded 1.3% lower while real estate investment firm Talaat Mostafa Group was down 3.6%.

Qatar's index also fell 0.4%, pushed down by banks, with the market heavyweight lender Qatar National Bank slipping 1.4% and Qatar Islamic Bank  shedding 1.7%.

But lenders boosted the Abu Dhabi index which was up 0.5% with First Abu Dhabi Bank, the United Arab Emirates' largest lender, rebounding 1.1%.

The lender has mostly lost ground in recent sessions after Qatar had earlier in June placed further restrictions on the bank as it continued an investigation into alleged currency manipulation, opened after the UAE and other Arab states began a boycott against Qatar in mid-2017.

The bank subsequently said it would close its sole branch in Qatar whose actions, it added, have no impact on its business outside Qatar, the Doha branch contributing less than 0.03% of its full-year 2018 net profit.

In Dubai, the index closed unchanged from previous session but most property stocks rose with blue-chip developer Emaar Properties climbing 1.6%.

Builder Arabtec Holding ARTC.DU increased 0.7% after one of its units secured an additional 315 million dirhams ($85.77 million) in a contract from Tecnicas Reunidas. 

($1 = 3.6728 UAE dirham)

(Reporting by Shakeel Ahmad in Bengaluru; Editing by Ken Ferris) ((shakeel.ahmad.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net;))