ANKARA (Reuters) -Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said Germany and Britain took a positive stance on the sale of Eurofighter jets to Turkey, adding that Ankara wants to finalise the purchase as soon as possible.

Turkey has been in talks on buying Eurofighter Typhoon jets, which are built by a consortium of Germany, Britain, Italy and Spain, represented by companies Airbus, BAE Systems and Leonardo.

Syrian authorities evacuated Bedouin families from the Druze-majority city of Sweida on Monday, after a ceasefire in the southern province halted a week of sectarian bloodshed that a monitor said killed more than 1,260 people.

The violence, which followed massacres of Alawites in March and clashes involving the Druze in April and May, has shaken the Islamist rule of interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who has pledged to protect minorities in a country devastated by 14 years of war.

Iran has no plans to abandon its nuclear programme including uranium enrichment despite the "severe" damage caused by US strikes to its facilities, the country's foreign minister said ahead of renewed talks with European powers.

Iran is scheduled to meet Britain, France and Germany in Istanbul on Friday, to discuss its nuclear programme, with Tehran accusing European powers of scuppering a landmark 2015 nuclear deal.

DAMASCUS (Reuters) -Hundreds of Bedouin civilians were evacuated from Syria's predominantly Druze city of Sweida on Monday as part of a U.S.-backed truce meant to end fighting that has killed hundreds of people, state media and witnesses said.

With hundreds reported killed, the violence in the southern province of Sweida has posed a major test for interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, drawing Israeli airstrikes on his Islamist-led government last week and deepening fissures in a country fractured by 14 years of sectarian civil war.

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

CAIRO (Reuters) -Israeli tanks pushed into southern and eastern areas of the Gazan city of Deir Al-Balah for the first time on Monday, an area where Israeli sources said the military believes some of the remaining hostages may be being held.

Gaza medics said at least three Palestinians were killed and several were wounded in tank shelling that hit eight houses and three mosques in the area, and which came a day after the military ordered residents to leave, saying it planned to fight Hamas militants.

By Tarek Amara

TUNIS (Reuters) -In May 2024, Tunisian activist Cherifa Riahi was arrested just two months after giving birth, accused of harbouring illegal migrants. Over a year later, she is still in prison without charge.

Rights groups see Riahi's case as a symbol of accelerating repression of civil society under President Kais Saied, who dissolved parliament in 2021 and began ruling by decree.

BEIRUT (Reuters) -U.S. special envoy Thomas Barrack said on Monday that when it comes to the conflict between Lebanon and Israel, the U.S. cannot compel Israel to do anything.

"The U.S. has no business in trying to compel Israel to do anything... America could only influence," he said in a press conference in Beirut.

"We are not going to have more boots on the ground in an adversarial nature anywhere."

(Reporting by Maya Gebeily, Writing by Ahmed Elimam; Editing by Sharon Singleton)

(Reuters) -The Israeli military is attacking Houthi targets in Yemen's Hodeidah port, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said in a statement on Monday.

Katz said the army is "forcefully countering any attempt to restore the terror infrastructure previously attacked".

Since Israel's war in Gaza against the Palestinian militant group Hamas began in October 2023, the Iran-aligned Houthis have been attacking vessels in the Red Sea in what they say are acts of solidarity with the Palestinians.

Syrian authorities on Monday evacuated Bedouin families from the Druze-majority city of Sweida, after a ceasefire in the southern province halted bloody clashes between the communities, an AFP correspondent and official media said.

An AFP correspondent outside the devastated provincial capital saw a convoy including buses enter Sweida and then exit again carrying civilians.

The evacuees, including women and children, were headed for reception centres in neighbouring Daraa province and to the capital Damascus, in coordination with the Syrian Red Crescent.

At the main hospital in south Syria's Sweida city, dozens of bodies are still waiting to be identified as the death count of days of sectarian clashes continues to rise.

"We have handed 361 bodies over to family members, but we still have 97 unidentified corpses," a forensic medicine official at facility said on condition of anonymity.

Clashes erupted on July 13 in Syria's Druze-majority province of Sweida between local fighters and Sunni Bedouin, spiralling and drawing in government forces, tribal allies of the Bedouin and the military of neighbouring Israel.