WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Numerous U.S. allies have said they would welcome the opportunity to go into Gaza and straighten out Hamas with "heavy force," but there is no need for that yet, President Donald Trump said on Tuesday.

"I told these countries, and Israel, “NOT YET!” There is still hope that Hamas will do what is right. If they do not, an end to Hamas will be FAST, FURIOUS, & BRUTAL! I would like to thank all of those countries that called to help," Trump wrote on Truth Social.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu and Susan Heavey)

LONDON (Reuters) -The Israeli government urged Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to drop his pledge to honour the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he travelled to the country.

"We believe that Prime Minister Carney should, of course, reconsider this and welcome Prime Minister Netanyahu, the leader of the only Jewish state and democratic country in the Middle East, to Canada," Israeli government spokesperson Shosh Bedrosian told reporters.

(Reporting by Steven Scheer. Editing by Andrew MacAskill)

Workers in the southern Tunisian city of Gabes launched a general strike on Tuesday following weeks of protest over a chemical factory residents blame for a spike in serious health issues.

Thousands have recently rallied in the city of some 400,000 inhabitants to demand the closure of a state-run phosphate processing plant which they say is behind a rise in gas poisonings after it ramped up production.

CAIRO (Reuters) -Gaza mediators -- the United States, Egypt and Qatar -- stepped up their efforts this week to stabilise the early stages of the truce between Israel and Hamas and to push forward U.S. President Donald Trump's 20-point ceasefire plan.

WHAT IS THE STATUS OF TALKS?

A Hamas delegation led by the group's exiled Gaza chief, Khalil Al-Hayya, has been in Cairo for talks with Egypt since Saturday.

LONDON (Reuters) -Syria hopes that U.S. sanctions against the country will be formally lifted in the coming months, the country's Economy Minister Mohammad Nidal al-Shaar told Reuters on Tuesday.

U.S. President Donald Trump ordered most sanctions lifted on the country in May after meeting with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, but the Caesar Syria Civil Protection Act of 2019 authorising them remains U.S. law.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met the head of Egyptian intelligence in Jerusalem on Tuesday, the prime minister's office said.

During the meeting, it said, they discussed advancing U.S. President Donald Trump's plan, Israel–Egypt relations and strengthening the peace between the two countries.

(Reporting by Steven Scheer; Editing by Alex Richardson)

ANKARA (Reuters) -Turkish nationalist leader Devlet Bahceli said the breakaway Turkish Cypriot state should hold a parliamentary vote to join Turkey, two days after Turkish Cypriots elected a candidate in favour of restarting talks with Greek Cypriots.

Bahceli, a key ally of President Tayyip Erdogan whose remarks have at times foreshadowed government policy, on Tuesday dismissed calls for a federal solution on the ethnically split island and said "Cyprus is Turkish and the homeland of Turks".

GENEVA (Reuters) -The U.N. World Food Programme said on Tuesday that supplies into Gaza were ramping up after the U.S.-brokered ceasefire but were still far short of its daily target of 2,000 tons because only two crossings are open, and none to the famine-hit north of the enclave.

Around 750 metric tons of food are now entering the Gaza Strip daily, according to the WFP, but this was still well below the scale of needs after two years of conflict between Israel and Hamas that has reduced much of Gaza to a wasteland and made nearly its entire population homeless.

US Vice President JD Vance expressed "great optimism" that the Gaza truce would hold, ahead of a meeting Wednesday in Jerusalem with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Vance is in Israel to shore up support for the US-brokered ceasefire and post-war reconstruction plans.

Despite concerns in Israel that Hamas has seized on the pause to reassert itself in Gaza, Vance said Washington would not set a deadline for the group to disarm under the US-brokered deal.

By Maayan Lubell and Nidal al-Mughrabi

JERUSALEM/CAIRO (Reuters) -U.S. Vice President JD Vance will arrive in Israel on Tuesday, as Washington tries to stabilise the first, shaky, phase of the Gaza ceasefire and push Israel and Hamas towards the harder concessions asked of each side in coming talks.

The two sides have accused each other of repeated breaches of the ceasefire since it was formally agreed eight days ago, with flashes of violence and recriminations over the pace of returning hostage bodies, bringing in aid and opening borders.