LONDON, May 21 (Reuters) - A Chinese-operated container ship was among the few to cross the Strait of Hormuz in the past 24 hours, data showed on Thursday, as uncertainty grows around reopening the critical waterway with talks over a deal between the U.S. and Iran deadlocked.

Before the war on Iran began on February 28, shipping traffic through the strait averaged 125 to 140 daily passages. Due to the conflict, 20,000 seafarers remain stranded inside the Gulf on board hundreds of ships.

By Parisa Hafezi and Angus McDowall

DUBAI, May 21 (Reuters) - Iran's leaders are splashing propaganda posters across Tehran boasting of national unity and victory over a global superpower, just months after crushing protests with mass killings and as war worsens economic pain for their people.

Alongside the images of Revolutionary Guardsmen and a blockaded Strait of Hormuz, authorities are staging military-themed mass weddings and public gun training sessions in mosques to vaunt a spirit of national resistance.

By Will Dunham

May 21 (Reuters) - If ever there were a structure built to stand the test of time, it surely would be the Great Pyramid of Giza, a transcendent monument to human imagination and ambition. Since being erected during the Old Kingdom period of ancient Egypt, it has stood impassively as time marched on and civilizations rose and fell.

The first of hundreds of Gaza flotilla activists began arriving at Istanbul airport Thursday after being arrested then deported from Israel, an AFP correspondent said.

The 422 activists, among them 85 Turkish nationals, were flown from southern Israel on three planes chartered by Ankara, Turkish foreign ministry sources said.

A first group of arrivals could be seen inside the VIP terminal at Istanbul airport on the European side of the city, as a crowd of supporters carrying Palestinian flags gathered to welcome them, the correspondent said.

ANKARA, May 21 (Reuters) - A Turkish court on Thursday annulled the 2023 congress of the main opposition Republican People's Party in which current chairman Ozgur Ozel was elected, dealing a potentially big blow to President Tayyip Erdogan's political challengers.

The Ankara court said former chairman Kemal Kilicdaroglu should replace current leader Ozel.

(Reporting by Huseyin Hayatsever; Editing by Jonathan Spicer )

PARIS, May 21 (Reuters) - Israeli authorities are currently deporting 37 French nationals who were part of the group of activists on board a Gaza-bound aid flotilla to Turkey, France's Foreign ministry spokesperson said on Thursday.

Speaking to reporters in a weekly news briefing, Pascal Confavreux said a senior Israeli diplomat had been summoned by the ministry earlier on Thursday to express Paris' anger in response to a video released by Israel's National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir in which the minister is seen taunting detained Gaza flotilla activists.

DEIR QANOUN EN-NAHR, Lebanon, May 21 (Reuters) - Mourners gathered in a southern Lebanese town on Thursday to bury victims from an Israeli airstrike earlier this week that killed 14 people, the deadliest single bombing raid on Lebanon since the announcement of a tenuous ceasefire last month.

The toll from Israel's strike on the town of Deir Qanoun En-Nahr on Tuesday included four children and three women, according to Lebanon's health ministry.

Independent filmmakers in Iran face a fresh wave of repression and extreme economic hardship because of the war, risking choking off a mainstay of world cinema, industry insiders say.

Despite heavy censorship and regular prosecutions, acclaimed directors from Asghar Farhadi, Jafar Panahi to Mohammad Rasoulof have been winning Oscars and heaps of awards at top European festivals for years with their movies about life in the Islamic republic.

Italy and Spain have called on the EU to sanction Israel's far-right national security minister, who posted a video showing detained activists from a Gaza-bound flotilla forced to their knees with hands bound.

A global outcry erupted after Israeli minister Itamar Ben Gvir published a video Wednesday showing the heavy-handed treatment of foreign activists from the flotilla who were detained at sea by Israel and awaiting deportation at the southern port of Ashdod.

By Parisa Hafezi and Rami Ayyub

DUBAI, May 21 (Reuters) - Iran's Supreme Leader has issued a directive that the country's near-weapons-grade uranium should not be sent abroad, two senior Iranian sources said, hardening Tehran's stance on one of the main U.S. demands at peace talks.

Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei's order could further frustrate U.S. President Donald Trump and complicate talks on ending the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.