US President Joe Biden spoke on the phone with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday, marking the first conversation between the leaders since their historic in-person summit in November and the latest in ongoing efforts by US and Chinese officials to defuse tensions between the two superpowers.

The call comes amid heavy global turbulence – the ongoing wars in Gaza and Ukraine, as well as North Korea's nuclear capabilities, were topics of discussion.

Other issues that have strained the Washington-Beijing relationship also came up, including Taiwan, China's recent provocations in the South China Sea and Beijing's human rights abuses.

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The two leaders also discussed a number of issues where US and Chinese officials see room for cooperation, including countering narcotics, the fast-developing world of artificial intelligence and climate change, according to a White House readout.

The White House described the one-hour-45-minute conversation as "candid and constructive" on a range of issues on which the leaders agreed and disagreed.

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Biden stressed the need to maintain "peace and stability" across the Taiwan Strait and he also raised his concerns over China's support for Russia's defence industry, the White House added.

Biden also noted his worries about China's trade tactics that the White House said harm American workers and emphasised that the US will do what it must to prevent "advanced US technologies from being used to undermine our national security, without unduly limiting trade and investment."

"The two leaders welcomed ongoing efforts to maintain open channels of communication and responsibly manage the relationship through high-level diplomacy and working-level consultations in the weeks and months ahead," the readout stated, noting Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to China.

The Biden-Xi chat represents a follow-through on a simple commitment that Biden made publicly after meeting with Xi for multiple hours in Woodside, California, last year: That, moving forward, the two leaders would pick up the phone and call each other more often, with an eye towards preventing potentially dangerous misunderstandings between two of the most powerful countries in the world.

A senior administration official previewing the call was quick to note that despite the great lengths to which both countries have gone to over the last year to de-escalate historic high tensions in US-China relations, a phrase Biden had uttered after his summit with Xi still remains operable: "Trust but verify."

"I don't think we ever really take the Chinese at their word when they say they will or will not do something. It is about verifying, as the president says," the official told CNN when asked about Xi's pledge that Beijing will not interfere in the US' 2024 election.

"Verifying the results we see, the actions we see, and then continuing to underscore and press on what our concerns are."

That fraught dynamic was underscored during November's summit when Biden – after underscoring the constructive nature of his meeting with Xi – told a CNN reporter that he would still refer to the Chinese leader as a dictator.

The label, which Biden had previously used to describe Xi, quickly drew the ire of the Chinese government, and marked an awkward end to what was a momentous meeting between the two leaders.

The Biden administration plans to continue stressing to Beijing the US' grave concerns about Chinese efforts to hack US critical infrastructure, the official said.

CNN reported exclusively in January that Xi had told Biden when they met in November that China would not interfere in the US presidential election, and that that assurance had also been reiterated by the Chinese foreign minister to Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan.

Biden and Xi also planned to examine some of the announcements that had come out of their California summit last year, including the re-establishment of the two countries' military-to-military communications and their pledge to work together to curb the production of fentanyl.

The conversation was meant to serve as a "check in" on the progress made over the last year in those areas, the official said.

Biden was also expected to address China's support for Russia over its continued war in Ukraine on Tuesday's call, on the heels of Xi's recent pledge to "strengthen strategic coordination" between China and Russia on a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this year.

And while China has shied away from publicly providing lethal aid to Russia to assist in its invasion of Ukraine, the official warned that China's support for Russia has allowed the country "to rebuild Russia's defense industrial base, essentially backfilling the trade from European partners."

"China, of course, is a sovereign country, it will make its own decisions about its relationships, but quite concerned about the direction of travel on this one, and I'm certain it will come up," the official said Monday.

Biden and Xi last spoke on the phone in July 2022.

"We would hope there would be a chance for another in-person meeting" in the near future, the senior administration official said.

Yellen set to visit China this week

In a significant mark of the Biden administration's ongoing engagement with Beijing, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is scheduled to visit China later this week, where she'll meet with her Chinese counterparts in her second visit to the country as Treasury secretary.

Yellen is scheduled to make two stops, traveling to Guangzhou and Beijing, for meetings with economists, students and members of the business community.

A Treasury official told reporters on Monday she planned to have frank discussions on what the administration considers "unfair" trade practices from China.

The Treasury secretary has vocally warned of the threat China's overcapacity poses to the global economy, but has also cautioned that decoupling with the manufacturing juggernaut would be "disastrous" for the US.

In addition to Yellen, other US officials have spoken with their Chinese counterparts in 2024, demonstrating just how critical the administration sees its bilateral relationship with the country.

In January, Sullivan met with the Chinese foreign minister in Bangkok, and Blinken met with the Chinese official in Munich in February.

Blinken is also set to travel to China himself "in the coming weeks," the senior administration official told reporters Monday, while Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin is expected to participate in a call with China's minister of defence "soon".

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Ukrainian drones attacked one of Russia's biggest oil refineries and a drone factory in the Russian province of Tatarstan, officials said on Tuesday, in what appeared to be Kyiv's deepest strike inside Russian territory since the war began more than two years ago.

The attack on facilities near the cities of Yelabuga and Nizhnekamsk, located some 1200 kilometres east of Ukraine, injured 12 people, Russian regional authorities said.

In recent months, Russian refineries and oil terminals have become priority targets of Ukrainian drone attacks, part of stepped-up assaults on Russian territory.

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Ukrainian drone developers have been extending the weapons' range for months, as Kyiv attempts to compensate for its battlefield disadvantage in weapons and troops.

The unmanned aerial vehicles are also an affordable option while Ukraine waits for more US military aid.

Neither side currently has the capacity to make much of a dent on the around 1000-kilometre front line.

Ukrainian security and intelligence officials said they targeted a "drone-production site" in Yelabuga, Tatarstan, using Ukrainian-produced long-range drones.

Tatarstan is known for its high level of industrialisation, and a factory near Yelabuga has reportedly built Iranian-designed Shahed exploding drones.

The Ukrainian officials also said that intelligence services were involved in an overnight attack on the Nizhnekamsk oil refinery.

The officials spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to comment publicly.

It was a rare claim of responsibility, as Kyiv officials normally decline comment about attacks on Russian soil, though they sometimes refer obliquely to them.

The Associated Press could not independently verify the claims.

Russia has commonly used Shahed drones for aerial attacks on Ukraine, including major barrages deploying up to 90 of them at a time in a bid to overwhelm air defenses.

Tatarstan officials said the attack didn't disrupt industrial production, while Nizhnekamsk's mayor said the attempt to strike the refinery was thwarted by air defences.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said Kyiv was trying to divert attention from its military setbacks by attempting to strike the Russian territory "to persuade its Western sponsors that it remains capable to confront the Russian military."

Speaking during a meeting with the top military brass, Shoigu claimed Russian troops have gained more than 400 square kilometres since the start of the year.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Russian military was taking steps to strengthen defenses against such attacks.

"The military is working to minimize this threat and eventually remove it altogether," he said in a conference call with reporters.

Ukraine previously has launched drone attacks in and around St. Petersburg, which lies about 1,000 kilometres north of the border. But the facilities in Tatarstan, a province on the Volga River, appears to be the most distant target Ukraine has tried to hit.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last year his country had developed a weapon that hit a target 700 kilometres away, in an apparent reference to a drone attack on Russian soil.

Late last year, Ukraine's minister for digital transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, said the government was bent on building a state-of-the-art " army of drones " and that its value to the war effort will be evident by the end of this year. Ukraine trained more than 10,000 new drone pilots last year, he said.

Ukraine has also developed deadly sea drones that have struck Russian navy ships in the Black Sea.

Those successful strikes have embarrassed the Kremlin, and on Tuesday Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree to appoint Adm. Alexander Moiseyev as the new navy chief, the Russian Defence Ministry said.

Putin also named Vice Adm. Sergei Pinchuk as the new commander of the navy's Black Sea Fleet after the dismissal of his predecessor, Adm. Viktor Sokolov.

Meanwhile, Ukraine's air force said on Tuesday it intercepted nine out of 10 Shahed drones launched overnight by Russia in the latest attack on the country's power grid.

Such attacks also claim civilian lives. Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said on Tuesday that the war has killed more than 10,500 Ukrainian civilians and injured more than 20,000.

"The conflict increasingly is becoming entrenched and protracted, punctuated by recurring waves of attacks, as seen across the country last week," he said in a speech.

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Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has confirmed the country's forces carried out an "unintentional strike" that killed seven aid workers, including one Australian, working for a charity in central Gaza.

"Unfortunately, in the last 24 hours there was a tragic case of our forces unintentionally hitting innocent people in the Gaza Strip," Netanyahu said, according to the BBC, in a message delivered in Hebrew.

"It happens in war, we check it to the end, we are in contact with the governments, and we will do everything so that this thing does not happen again."

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As a result of the deaths, which also included three British nationals, a Polish national, an American-Canadian dual citizen and a Palestinian, the charity World Central Kitchen suspended delivery on Tuesday of vital food aid to Gaza, where Israel's offensive has pushed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to the brink of starvation.

The Israeli military earlier expressed "sincere sorrow" over the deaths while stopping short of accepting responsibility.

Footage showed the bodies, several wearing protective gear with the charity's logo, at a hospital in the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah.

The charity, founded by celebrity chef José Andrés, was key to a recently opened sea route for delivering desperately needed aid to northern Gaza — where the UN says much of the population is on the brink of starvation, largely cut off from the rest of the territory by Israeli forces.

Andrés — whose charity operates in several countries wracked by wars or natural disasters, including Israel after the October 7 attack that triggered the current conflict — said he was "heartbroken" by the deaths of his colleagues.

"The Israeli government needs to stop this indiscriminate killing. It needs to stop restricting humanitarian aid, stop killing civilians and aid workers, and stop using food as a weapon," he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

The charity said the team was traveling in a three-car convoy that included two armored vehicles, and its movements had been coordinated with the Israeli army.

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the top military spokesman, said officials have been "reviewing the incident at the highest levels." He says an independent investigation will be launched that "will help us reduce the risk of such an event from occurring again".

Erin Gore, the CEO of the charity, said "this is not only an attack against WCK, this is an attack on humanitarian organisations showing up in the most dire of situations where food is being used as a weapon of war. This is unforgivable."

UNRWA, the main UN agency in Gaza, said in its latest report that 173 of its workers have been killed in the territory since the war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1200 people and abducting around 250 hostages.

Israel responded with one of the deadliest and most destructive offensives in recent history.

In the face of a growing humanitarian disaster in Gaza's north, several countries worked to open a sea route, hoping it would allow more aid to enter the territory, where supplies have only trickled in through the land routes controlled by Israel.

The United States and other countries have also airdropped aid, but humanitarian workers say such efforts are far from sufficient to meet mounting needs.

Israel has barred UNRWA from making deliveries to the north, and other aid groups say sending truck convoys north has been too dangerous because of the military's failure to ensure safe passage.

Three aid ships from the Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus arrived earlier Monday carrying some 400 tons of food and supplies organised by World Central Kitchen and the United Arab Emirates following a pilot was run last month.

The United States, which has provided key military and diplomatic support for Israel's offensive, has touted the sea route and plans to build its own floating dock, with construction expected to take several weeks.

National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said the US was "heartbroken and deeply troubled" by the strike.

"We urge Israel to swiftly investigate what happened," she posted on X.

Nael Eliyan, a displaced Palestinian, was in his tent about 100 metres away when he heard the explosion late Monday and raced to the scene.

"Their injuries were serious, and they died quickly," he said, describing them as "heroes, martyrs, brave people."

The bodies of the aid workers were taken to a hospital in the southern city of Rafah on the Egyptian border, according to an Associated Press reporter at the hospital.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed that Zomi Frankcom, 44, of Melbourne, was among those killed and said his government has requested an explanation from Israel.

"This is someone who was volunteering overseas to provide aid through this charity for people who are suffering tremendous deprivation in Gaza. And this is just completely unacceptable," Albanese told reporters.

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said his country was working to verify reports of the deaths of UK nationals in the strike, which he said was "deeply distressing."

"It is essential that humanitarian workers are protected and able to carry out their work," he wrote on X, also calling for an investigation.

Poland's Foreign Ministry posted "sincerest words of sympathy" to the family of a volunteer who had offered assistance to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, without saying how he was killed. The Foreign Ministry said it is requesting an explanation from Israel.

The mayor of Przemysl, Wojciech Bakun, named the victim on Facebook as Damian Soból and said he was from the city in southeastern Poland.

At least 32,916 Palestinians have been killed in the war, around two-thirds of them women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.

Israel blames the civilian toll on Palestinian militants because they fight in dense residential areas but the army rarely comments on individual strikes.

Two other apparent Israeli strikes late Monday killed at least 12 Palestinians, including five children, in Rafah, where Israel has vowed to expand its ground operation despite the presence of some 1.4 million Palestinians, most of whom have sought refuge from fighting elsewhere.

One of the strikes hit a family home, and a father and his three children, ages 7, 13 and 19, were among those killed, according to hospital records. Another hit a gathering near a mosque, killing at least six people, including three children.

Aid groups have repeatedly called for a humanitarian cease-fire, saying it's the only way to reach people in need. The United States, Qatar and Egypt have spent months trying to broker such a pause and a hostage release but the indirect talks between Israel and Hamas remain bogged down.

Hamas is believed to be holding some 100 hostages and the remains of 30 others after freeing most of the rest during a cease-fire in November in exchange for the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says he is yet to speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the air strike that killed seven aid workers, including one Australian.

Melbourne-born Lalzawmi "Zomi" Frankcom was among the seven World Central Kitchen workers killed in an airstrike on central Gaza yesterday.

Albanese said on Tuesday night that the Australian government had "spoken with the Israeli government" but he was still waiting to speak directly with Netanyahu as he pushed for an explanation "for this tragedy".

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"To have aid workers, not just from Australia but other nations as well, going about the business of assisting, in the most humanitarian way, their fellow global citizens – in this case the people of Gaza, who are suffering from incredible deprivation – to have them killed in this way is completely unacceptable," Albanese said on the ABC's 7.30 tonight.

"The targeting of these people is just a tragedy."

Netanyahu acknowledged late tonight that Israel's forces had carried out the "unintended strike" on "innocent people in the Gaza Strip".

He said officials were looking into the strike and would "do everything for this not to happen again".

As well as Frankcom, those killed include three British nationals, a Polish national, an American-Canadian dual citizen and a Palestinian.

Albanese said the strike was "completely unacceptable".

"We await the details and we await a full explanation. But we want, as the Australian government, accountability for what has occurred to this Australian citizen."

Foreign Minister Senator Penny Wong issued a strongly-worded statement condemning the strike.

"The government has made representations to the Netanyahu government and seeks a thorough and expeditious review," she said.

"We expect full accountability for these deaths.

"We repeat our demands for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire leading to a sustainable ceasefire, the release of all hostages, and that international humanitarian law be upheld."

Wong paid tribute to Frankcom for "a life dedicated to the service of others, including her fellow Australians during natural disasters" and expressed her "deepest sympathies" to her family.

"Her tireless work to improve the lives of others should never have cost Ms Frankcom her own," Wong said.

Albanese said he had spoken to Frankcom's brother.

"They are, of course, devastated by this news," he told 7.30.

"This is just an extraordinary tragedy, it's one that they certainly weren't expecting.

"Zomi knew the risks, but when you're there providing aid and support and doing such extraordinarily good work, you don't expect that to happen."

The prime minister repeated the government's calls for "a humanitarian ceasefire and a sustainable ceasefire" in the region.

"We have called for ceasefires," Albanese said.

"We've voted that way in the United Nations and we've put out statements calling for that way. But it must be sustainable. You don't want a ceasefire and then it to recommence in just a short period of time.

"The hostages have to be released as well. And we need a path to a sustainable peace in the region."