By Olivia Le Poidevin and Emma Farge

GENEVA (Reuters) -Talks to create the world's first legally binding treaty to tackle plastic pollution hung in the balance late on Thursday as countries scrambled to bridge deep divisions over the extent of future curbs on a final day of negotiations in Geneva.

Late Thursday night, countries awaited a new text which could be the basis for further negotiations after delegations who want an ambitious plastics treaty threw out the one proposed on Wednesday.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) -European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Thursday that an Israeli settlement plan is not in line with international law, and she called on Israeli authorities not to move ahead with it.

Israel's far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has announced that work would start on a long-delayed settlement that would divide the West Bank and cut it off from East Jerusalem.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump said on Thursday he would like to see journalists gain access to Gaza to see humanitarian efforts.

Israel has not allowed foreign reporters to enter Gaza since the start of its war in October 2023, unless they are under Israeli military escort.

"I'd like to see that happen. Sure," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. "I would be very fine with journalists going. And it's a very dangerous position to be in, as you know, if you're a journalist, but I would like to see it."

LONDON (Reuters) -British foreign minister David Lammy said Israeli plans to develop a settlement that would divide the West Bank and cut it off from East Jerusalem marked a breach of international law and must be stopped immediately.

"The UKstrongly opposes the Israeli government's E1 settlement plans, which would divide a future Palestinian state in two and mark a flagrant breach of international law. The plansmust be stopped now," Lammy said in an emailed statement.

(Reporting by Sachin Ravikumar and William James)

The United Nations warned Israel and Russia on Thursday that their militaries faced being listed as parties suspected of committing sexual violence in conflict in light of credible evidence of violations.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres's report said the two countries risked being added to a list of parties thought to use sexual violence including rape in conflict that includes Myanmar's military, Sudan's army and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

By Riham Alkousaa

BERLIN (Reuters) -The German government is reviewing whether Afghans stranded in Pakistan while awaiting resettlement in Germany will indeed be allowed to go there, its interior minister said on Thursday, as Islamabad intensifies deportations of Afghans.

Pakistan has begun to deport documented Afghan refugees ahead of its September 1 deadline for them to leave, according to the United Nations, a step that could see more than 1 million Afghans expelled from the country.

A series of pro-Palestinian protests targeting an Israeli cruise ship around Greece have irritated a conservative government walking a diplomatic tightrope with Middle Eastern powers during the Gaza war.

At the crack of dawn on Thursday at the port of Piraeus outside Athens, dozens of riot police armed with truncheons, tear gas and shields sealed up a cruise terminal from hundreds of demonstrators.

Their ire was directed at the "Crown Iris", a hulking Israeli tourist ship that has attracted protests at each of its stops in the country since last month.

By Tuvan Gumrukcu

ANKARA (Reuters) -Turkey will provide weapons systems and logistical tools to Syria under a military cooperation accord signed on Wednesday, a Turkish Defence Ministry source said, adding that Ankara would also train the Syrian army in using such equipment if needed.

Turkey, a NATO member, has been one of Syria's main foreign allies since the ousting of President Bashar al-Assad last year. It has vowed to help train and restructure Syria's armed forces, rebuild the country and its institutions, and support efforts to protect Syrian territorial integrity.

By Tala Ramadan and Ali Sawafta

(Reuters) -Israeli settlement building, a point of contention at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has come back into focus after Israel's far-right finance minister revived a plan that would divide the West Bank and cut it off from East Jerusalem.

WHAT IS A SETTLEMENT?

An Israeli settlement is made up of housing units built for Jewish Israelis on land captured by Israel from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East war, primarily in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

New Israeli legislation regulating foreign aid groups has increasingly been used to deny their requests to bring supplies into Gaza, a joint letter signed by more than 100 groups said Thursday.

Ties between foreign-backed aid groups and the Israeli government have long been tense, with Israeli officials often complaining that the organisations are biased.

Those rocky relations have become even more strained since Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war.