Rights groups B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights Israel said on Monday that they had concluded the war in Gaza amounts to a "genocide" against Palestinians, a first for Israeli NGOs.

Both organisations are frequent critics of Israeli government policies, but the language in their reports issued on Monday was their most stark yet.

"Nothing prepares you for the realisation that you are part of a society committing genocide. This is a deeply painful moment for us," B'Tselem executive director Yuli Novak told a news conference unveiling the two reports.

ATHENS (Reuters) -Firefighters battled to put out wildfires on Monday in three separate provinces in Turkey and near a tourist resort in Albania, stoked by strong winds after days of searing heat across the Mediterranean region.

Smoke billowed over the mountainous Black Sea province of Karabuk, some 200 kilometres north of the capital Ankara, as a wildfire which raged for a sixth day forced the evacuation of more than a dozen villages and burnt swathes of forests.

US President Donald Trump warned Monday that the people of Gaza are facing "real starvation", as aid agencies sought to take advantage of an Israeli "tactical pause" of some military operations to rush in food aid.

Speaking in Scotland, Trump contradicted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has dismissed famine fears as Hamas propaganda.

Trump said the United States and its partners would help set up food centres to feed the more than two million Palestinians in Gaza facing what UN aid agencies have warned is a deadly wave of starvation and malnutrition.

US President Donald Trump on Monday issued Moscow with a dramatic new deadline to end the war in Ukraine or face tough new sanctions, as he met UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Scotland.

Saying he was not very interested in talking to Russian President Vladimir Putin anymore, the US leader also shifted his tone on Gaza, acknowledging there were signs of "real starvation" in the conflict-ravaged Palestinian territory.

Israeli settlers attacked the Palestinian Christian village of Taybeh in the occupied West Bank overnight, torching cars and spray-painting threatening graffiti, a witness and the Palestinian Authority said Monday.

Jeries Azar, a Taybeh resident and journalist for Palestine TV, told AFP his house and car were targeted in the pre-dawn assault.

"I looked outside and saw my car on fire, and they were throwing something at the vehicle and in the direction of the house," Azar said.

By Andrea Shalal

EDINBURGH, Scotland (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump will host British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at his golf resort in western Scotland on Monday for talks expected to range from their recent bilateral trade deal to the worsening hunger crisis in Gaza, the two governments said.

Trump, riding high after announcing a huge trade agreement with the European Union late on Sunday, said he expected Starmer would also be pleased.

A towel draped over his head, Hamza Jabbari sets bags of plastic bottles onto a scale. He is among Tunisia's "barbechas", informal plastic recyclers whose increasing numbers reflect the country's economic -- and migratory -- woes.

The 40-something-year-old said he starts the day off at dawn, hunching over bins and hunting for plastic before the rubbish trucks and other plastic collectors come.

"It's the most accessible work in Tunisia when there are no job offers," Jabbari said, weighing a day's haul in Bhar Lazreg, a working-class neighbourhood north of the capital, Tunis.

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -Dozens of ministers will gather at the United Nations on Monday for a delayed conference to work toward a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, but the U.S. and Israel are boycotting the event.

The 193-member U.N. General Assembly decided in September last year that such a conference would be held in 2025. Hosted by France and Saudi Arabia, the conference was postponed in June after Israel attacked Iran.

Ever since the partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states in 1947, the United Nations has been inextricably linked to the fate of Palestinians, with the organization meeting this week hoping to revive the two-state solution.

Here is a timeline on the issue:

- Partition -

In November 1947, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 181 dividing Palestine -- which was then under British mandate -- into Jewish and Arab states, with a special international zone for Jerusalem.

France and Saudi Arabia will lead the charge starting Monday to revive the moribund push for a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians at a UN conference in New York.

Days before the July 28-30 conference, to be co-chaired by Riyadh and Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that he would formally recognize the State of Palestine in September.

Paris's decision "will breathe new life into a conference that seemed destined to irrelevance," said Richard Gowan, an analyst at the International Crisis Group.