ISTANBUL, Aug 4 (Reuters) - Three crew members were seriously injured after a roll-on/roll-off cargo ship was hit in a drone attack near Russia's Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, Turkey's maritime authority said late on Monday.

The Nadezhda was sailing from Novorossiysk to Turkey's northern Samsun port on Monday when it came under attack about 20 nautical miles off Novorossiysk, the maritime authority said in a statement.

Lebanon and Israel held a fresh round of US-sponsored talks in Rome on Tuesday, with Beirut seeking Israel's phased withdrawal from the country's south.

Convoys carrying delegations from the two countries arrived in the morning to the US embassy in the Italian capital, where discussions are scheduled to run until Thursday. 

By Samia Nakhoul

BEIRUT, Aug 3 (Reuters) - Iran is betting it can outlast Washington by turning the Middle East's trade routes, shipping lanes and energy infrastructure into pressure points that steadily raise the cost of confrontation, according to Gulf officials and analysts.

Rather than seeking a decisive military victory, Tehran is pursuing a strategy of calibrated escalation aimed at widening the conflict without triggering full-scale war.

SINGAPORE, Aug 4 (Reuters) - Shipping traffic at the key Gulf waterways of Bab el-Mandeb and Strait of Hormuz held largely unchanged at the start of the week, shipping data showed, as the progress of talks between the United States and Iran remained ambiguous.

Twenty vessels — 12 tankers and eight bulk carriers — passed through the Bab el-Mandeb strait on Monday, Kpler shipping data showed, steady from the previous day.

Of these 20 crossings, there were a total of 12 exits and eight entries, mostly with their transponders on.

For 115 days, captain Mohammad Shafiqul Islam was stranded on the high seas of the Gulf, watching missiles light up the night sky and rationing food and water for his crew.

"I tried to stay calm because I was responsible for 31 lives, a ship worth $40 million, and cargo valued at $8.2 million," the 51-year-old Bangladeshi mariner told AFP, back home after the ordeal.

Islam was the captain of the Banglar Joyjatra, a bulk carrier that had arrived in the Gulf a month before the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran in February.

By Nandita Bose, Elwely Elwelly and Parisa Hafezi

WASHINGTON/DUBAI, Aug 3 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that talks with Iran were under way, warning that it was a "last chance" for Tehran to sign a good deal to end the five-month-old war, but Iran denied that any negotiations were being held or planned.

The contradictory statements suggest there is little prospect for a diplomatic resolution to the war anytime soon.

By Andrew Chung

August 3 (Reuters) - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor declined on Monday to halt $655.5 million in damages that Palestinian authorities were ordered to pay plaintiffs in a U.S. civil lawsuit concerning attacks that killed and injured Americans in Israel from 2002 to 2004.

By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Dawoud Abu Alkas

CAIRO/GAZA, Aug 3 (Reuters) - Palestinians in Gaza said on Monday that U.S. President Donald Trump's touting of a deal aimed at disarming Hamas and ending the war was out of touch with their worsening reality, after Israel killed 18 people in one of the deadliest days since a ceasefire last year.

Trump declared last Thursday "a major milestone" toward implementing the Gaza peace plan agreed to in October, saying that Hamas would disarm and Israel would withdraw in phases.

WASHINGTON, Aug 3 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday said Iran faced "decapitation" if it did not agree a pact to end the conflict between the two nations, saying Tehran had one last chance to strike a deal.

"I think we're going to maybe get something, but I want to give them every last chance before decapitation," he said, reiterating a threat to launch a major attack on Iran.

Earlier on Monday, after Iran said there were no talks under way, Trump slammed what he called Iran's "unbelievably duplicitous" leadership.

US President Donald Trump's Board of Peace on Monday assured Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel's withdrawal in Gaza would only begin after Hamas's complete disarmament, following his objections.

Two members of Netanyahu's security cabinet had urged a vote to tear up the deal championed by Trump after the board released a text that called for Israel to begin a phased withdrawal.