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Madrid (AFP) – Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Wednesday announced an anti-corruption plan designed with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development in a bid to salvage confidence in his scandal-hit government.

The implication of two former Socialist heavyweights and close Sanchez allies in a graft scandal has rocked the minority leftist coalition and thrown its viability into doubt.

The crisis is particularly sensitive for a leader who came to power in 2018 vowing to clean up Spanish politics after the rival conservative Popular Party (PP) was convicted in its own graft affair.

Sanchez announced a 15-point plan drawn up with the Paris-based OECD's division for anti-corruption and integrity in government during an address to parliament.

They include the creation of an independent public integrity agency to prevent, supervise and prosecute corruption, with Sanchez saying existing mechanisms have "generated inefficiencies and vacuums of coordination".

Enhanced data analysis aided by artificial intelligence will scan for "vulnerabilities" in public tenders, said Sanchez, after his former right-hand men were suspected of receiving kickbacks in the improper awarding of such contracts.

Top officials would also undergo "random and annual wealth checks" during their time in the job, while parties and foundations receiving public funds above 50,000 euros ($58,500) would be obliged to face external audits.

Whistleblowers would receive greater protection, specialised sections in courts would be created and the criminal code reformed to harshen punishments for offences against the public administration, added Sanchez.

A bombshell police report into the scandal released last month implicated ex-transport minister Jose Luis Abalos and former top Socialist official Santos Cerdan, both key figures in Sanchez's rise to power.

Sanchez revealed he had considered resigning over the affair, apologising but defying the opposition by vowing not to "throw in the towel" and call early elections.

Since the police report, Cerdan has relinquished his powerful post as Socialist organisation secretary and as an MP, while the party definitively expelled Abalos.

The array of far-left and regional separatist parties propping up the government had demanded firm anti-corruption measures as the price for their continued support.

Sanchez described the plan as "the biggest boost" to the fight against corruption in Spain "in recent decades".

But PP leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo dismissed Sanchez's explanations and reform efforts, saying the Socialists had "operated like a criminal organisation" for years.

"We don't know where your direct responsibility begins and where it ends... How will you get us out of this nightmare if you got us into it?" he replied to Sanchez, demanding elections.

Separate investigations are underway against Sanchez's wife, brother and Socialist-appointed top public prosecutor, ratcheting up the pressure on one of Europe's longest-serving leftist leaders.

Havana (AFP) – Cuban Jessica Rodriguez never knows if she will find the medicines that keep her four-year-old son alive in a country that has all but run out of essential drugs.

On a near daily basis she sprints from one state-run pharmacy to another on a quest for pills and syringes. Increasingly, she has to turn to the black market and pay the higher prices there. That is if they have what she needs.

Rodriguez, who left her job as a physiotherapist to care for her sickly son, receives a monthly state grant of less than $12. Her husband's salary is not much more.

And as Cuba sinks ever deeper into its worst economic crisis in decades -- with critical shortages also of food and fuel, regular power blackouts and rampant inflation -- Rodriguez fears that one day the drugs may run out altogether.

"It drives me crazy," the 27-year-old told AFP at her home in Havana's Santa Fe neighborhood as her son Luis Angelo, watched a cartoon on her mobile.

"Missing a dose, not having the suction tubes, a catheter that cannot be replaced... all can lead to serious illnesses which can cost him his life."

Luis Angelo was born with a deformed esophagus, and while he waits to receive a transplant, breathes through a tracheostomy and eats though a tube inserted into his stomach. He is also asthmatic, has a heart condition, and suffers epileptic fits.

The boy takes seven different drugs daily, and needs a variety of tubes, syringes and other equipment to administer them.

Cuba, reputed for supplying highly trained medical doctors to other countries and for its advanced domestic pharmaceutical industry, has long counted vaccines and medical services among its top exports.

Under US sanctions since 1962, and hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic that all but tanked its tourism industry, the communist country is now no longer medically self-sufficient.

Last year, the island nation of 9.7 million people could not afford the $300 million needed to import the raw materials it needed to produce hundreds of critical medicines.

In Havana, and further afield, pharmacy shelves are bare and hospitals lack basic supplies such as gauze, suturing thread, disinfectant and oxygen.

"There are days when there's nothing," a doctor in the capital told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Cuba's healthcare system is public and meant to be universally accessible. Private pharmacies, clinics and hospitals are illegal.

Patients who require chronic medicine are issued with a document known as a "tarjeton," which allows them access to subsidized medicines.

Luis Angelo has a "tarjeton," but it is of little use if pharmacies don't have the drugs, said his mom.

On the black market, she is forced to pay $3 to $4 for a blister sheet of pills -- about a quarter of the average monthly Cuban salary at the unofficial exchange rate.

"The price is cruel," Rodriguez told AFP.

Confronted with the ever-worsening medicine shortage, the government has since 2021 allowed travelers to bring back food and medicines in their luggage -- though not for resale.

Some of these drugs are feeding a black market that profits from the desperately infirm with sales via WhatsApp or internet sites.

Other sites, however, offer drugs for free or barter them for food.

In the NGO sphere, projects have also emerged to provide medicines to Cubans free of charge.

One, dubbed Palomas, has helped tens of thousands of people since its creation in Havana in 2021.

It relies on medicines that people have "left over from a treatment, or were brought by someone from abroad," coordinator Sergio Cabrera told AFP.

Every day, in 13 WhatsApp groups, Palomas publishes a list of medicines it has available, and another list of those it needs.

One beneficiary was 32-year-old dentist Ibis Montalban, who said she managed to get her mother's chronic diabetes medication through Palomas, adding: "thank you, thank you, thank you."

Cabrera says it is hard to witness the suffering of people in need.

"Many people cry here, and many times we cry with them," he said, grateful that Palomas can at least offer " a ray of hope."

Incheon (South Korea) (AFP) – K-pop's BTS are grossed out by them. A YouTuber ate them. Hikers plough through them: South Korea is dealing with a "lovebug" invasion that experts say highlights worsening climate change.

First identified in South Korea a decade ago, Seoul is now annually hit by a weeks-long infestation of the Plecia nearctica insect, a type of March fly nicknamed "lovebug" for their distinctive mating behaviour, which sees them fly around in coupled pairs.

Huge clouds of the insects, which are harmless to humans, blanket apartment walls and mountain trails and, after they quickly die, leave behind piles of rotting black remains and a foul stench.

Complaints about the bugs, which scientists believe came from southern China and have surged with rising temperatures linked to climate change, have risen sharply, Seoul city data showed.

Even K-pop BTS idol RM is seen seemingly cursing upon spotting the insects in a viral video, with fellow bandmember Jin separately seen casually blowing a lovebug out of his way mid-performance.

"In general, many insects tend to grow more rapidly in warmer temperatures," Ju Jung-won, a deputy researcher at the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, told AFP.

"As for the lovebugs, it looks like the temperature and environment found in foreign regions where they are active are now taking hold in South Korea as well, allowing them to survive here."

At the peak of Gyeyangsan Mountain in Incheon, west of Seoul, public servants wearing makeshift protective gear struggled to clear piles of dead insects, as vast swarms of the bugs circled in the air, making it hard for people in the area to keep their eyes open.

At their worst, the piles of dead lovebugs in parts of the mountain were "stacked more than 10 centimetres (four inches) high," said Jung Yong-sun, 59, who was tasked with pest-control duties.

Walking through them, he added, "felt like stepping on something soft and cushiony."

The unpleasant odour took many by surprise.

"At first, I thought it was food waste... Turns out, it was the stench of dead bugs," said Ahn So-young, a 29-year-old hiker.

"I cried when I came up here. I was so scared."

Park Sun-jae, a senior researcher at the National Institute of Biological Resources, told AFP that the bugs were first reported in South Korea in Incheon in 2015.

"Since 2022, the population has begun to surge," Park said, adding that they were now "found throughout the greater Seoul metropolitan area".

This year, the infestation has been widely documented online, with content creators flocking to the worst-affected areas to cash in on the inundation.

One YouTuber collected a massive pile of the bugs and turned them into a "burger patty", mixing them into batter before frying and eating them on camera.

"It's not bad. It's really delicious," he said in the video, which has garnered more than 648,000 views.

On Gyeyangsan Mountain, content creators Kim Ji-young and Sam Jung intentionally dressed in white — a colour known to attract the bugs — and filmed themselves being swarmed.

"This is probably something I'll never experience again in my lifetime," Jung said, as his hat and clothes were crawling with the bugs.

But for many Seoul residents, the bugs aren't just a viral moment. They are disrupting daily routines.

In Daejo Market in Seoul's Eunpyeong district, restaurant owners had to constantly blow the bugs away to protect their ingredients.

Dead insects kept piling up on the floor -- putting severe pressure to the cleaners' workload.

"I want to be able to eat lunch without worrying about lovebugs landing on my face or getting into my food," business owner Chang Seo-young, 48, told AFP.

Lovebugs -— seen by South Korean officials as "beneficial insects" for breaking down plant matter —- typically disappear naturally by early July.

But scientists warn that given the unpredictability of the climate crisis, the possibility of insect species -- including ones more harmful than lovebugs -- invading the country cannot be ruled out.

"I worry that future generations will have to suffer so much," said Jeon In-hyeop, a 29-year-old visitor to Gyeyangsan Mountain, after surveying parts of the summit covered in bugs.

"I feel like our children might end up living in a much more unfortunate world."

Washington (AFP) – El Salvador has said that the United States has legal jurisdiction over deported migrants being held in the Central American country, court documents show.

The assertion clashes with the Trump administration's claims that it has no authority to bring back the migrants jailed in El Salvador's maximum security CECOT prison as they are no longer in US custody.

Lawyers for Venezuelans held in the prison submitted the statements as evidence in a US court on Monday in another case challenging President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.

Responding to questions from a UN working group on enforced disappearances, El Salvador said its actions were limited to making prison facilities available for people detained within the scope of the justice system and law enforcement activities of another state.

"In this context, the jurisdiction and legal responsibility for these persons lie exclusively with the competent foreign authorities," it said.

In mid-March, Trump sent 238 Venezuelans and 23 Salvadorans from the United States to the CECOT prison in El Salvador.

The Trump administration invoked an obscure wartime law to justify the removal of the Venezuelans, accusing them of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang.

The deportations sparked protests after the US government refused to bring back a Salvadoran man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who had been wrongly deported.

The United States claimed lack of jurisdiction until Abrego Garcia was returned in June and arrested for human trafficking, a crime he denies. His lawyers claim he was tortured in prison in El Salvador.

El Salvador has agreed to imprison expelled migrants in exchange for six million dollars, according to the White House. The US Supreme Court urged the government to respect due process because migrants have the right to challenge expulsions.

Washington (AFP) – Passengers at US airports will no longer have to remove their shoes to pass through security under a new policy unveiled Tuesday, 20 years after the requirement was introduced.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced the change to Transportation Security Administration (TSA) rules at a news conference at Washington's Ronald Reagan National Airport.

Passengers at US airports have been required to take off shoes during screenings since 2006, five years after the arrest of "Shoe Bomber" Richard Reid, who had explosives hidden in his footwear onboard.

"In those 20 years since that policy was put in place, our security technology has changed dramatically. It's evolved. TSA has changed. We have a multi-layered whole of government approach now to security," Noem said.

"We are very confident that we can continue to provide hospitality to folks and for American travelers and for those visiting our country, while maintaining the same standard of security for passengers and for our homeland," she added.

Reid, a member of Al-Qaeda, was overpowered by other passengers as he tried to light a fuse on his shoes on an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami in December 2001.

Reid pleaded guilty to terrorism and other charges and is serving a life sentence at a maximum security prison in Colorado.

TSA said in a statement on the shoe policy change that other security measures will remain in place.

"Other aspects of TSA's layered security approach will still apply during the TSA checkpoint process. For example, passengers subject must still clear identity verification, Secure Flight vetting, and other processes," it said.

Past attacks -- both successful and thwarted -- have led to a raft of new airport security measures in recent decades, especially following the September 11, 2001 attacks, in which hijackers flew passenger jets into the Twin Towers in New York as well as the Pentagon.

In 2006, British authorities announced they had foiled a terror plot that aimed to blow up several planes in mid-air simultaneously with liquid explosives. Since then, tough restrictions have applied to liquids and gels, such as toothpaste.

And electronics have also come in for additional screening in a bid to head off attacks, with passengers required to remove laptops from bags, for instance.

London (AFP) – Thirteen people caught up in a faulty accounting software scandal at British Post Office branches may have killed themselves and 59 more contemplated doing so, a public inquiry report published Tuesday said.

The Post Office wrongfully prosecuted around 1,000 subpostmasters -- self-employed branch managers -- between 1999 and 2015.

Errors in tech giant Fujitsu's Legacy Horizon accounting software incorrectly made it appear that money was missing from their accounts.

Many ended up bankrupt after being forced by the Post Office to pay back the missing funds. Some were jailed.

Dozens who were later exonerated died without ever seeing their names cleared.

Inquiry chair Wyn Williams said that there was a "real possibility" that 13 people killed themselves as a result of their ordeal.

Ten people attempted to take their own lives and 59 contemplated it, the report into the scandal found.

Many of the prosecutions took place after questions were raised about the software's reliability.

Police are investigating possible fraud committed during the scandal.

"I am satisfied from the evidence that I have heard that a number of senior, and not-so-senior employees of the Post Office knew or, at the very least should have known, that Legacy Horizon was capable of error," Williams said in the report.

"Yet... the Post Office maintained the fiction that its data was always accurate," he added.

A "number of senior" people at the Post Office were aware the system was capable of error before it was changed in 2010, he said.

Welcoming the findings, former branch manager Jo Hamilton said the report showed "the full scale of the horror that they unleashed on us".

Williams described the picture of the scandal that had emerged as "profoundly disturbing".

"Many thousands of people have suffered serious financial detriment. Many people have inevitably suffered emotional turmoil and significant stress.

"Many businesses and homes have been lost. Bankruptcies have occurred, marriage and families have been wrecked," he said.

Among those who gave evidence to the inquiry was former Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells who was quizzed about what she knew and when.

Vennells broke down in tears when recalling the case of one man who took his own life after being wrongly accused over a £39,000 ($49,537) shortfall at his branch.

The long-running saga hit the headlines after the broadcast in January 2024 of a television drama about the managers' ordeal, which generated a wave of sympathy and outrage.

Fujitsu's European director Paul Patterson told a parliamentary committee later that the firm, which assisted the Post Office in prosecutions using flawed data from the software, was "truly sorry" for "this appalling miscarriage of justice".

Many of those involved are still battling for compensation.

The government's Department for Business and Trade (DBT) said last month that 7,569 claims out of the 11,208 received had now been paid, leaving 3,709 still to be settled.

Alan Bates, a former branch manager who led the fight for justice, has said the compensation process has "turned into quasi-kangaroo courts".

Bates, who was awarded a knighthood by King Charles III for his campaign to highlight the scandal, told the Sunday Times newspaper in May the DBT "sits in judgement of the claims and alters the goal posts as and when it chooses".

Post Office Minister Gareth Thomas said last month the government had made it a priority to speed up the delivery of compensation since taking office in July 2024.

The Hague (AFP) – The International Criminal Court on Tuesday issued arrest warrants for two senior Taliban leaders, accusing them of crimes against humanity for persecuting women and girls.

Judges said there were "reasonable grounds" to suspect Taliban Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada and chief justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani of committing gender-based persecution.

"While the Taliban have imposed certain rules and prohibitions on the population as a whole, they have specifically targeted girls and women by reason of their gender, depriving them of fundamental rights and freedoms," the court said in a statement.

The Taliban had "severely deprived" girls and women of the rights to education, privacy and family life and the freedoms of movement, expression, thought, conscience and religion, ICC judges said.

"In addition, other persons were targeted because certain expressions of sexuality and/or gender identity were regarded as inconsistent with the Taliban's policy on gender."

The court said the alleged crimes had been committed between August 15, 2021, when the Taliban seized power, and continued until at least January 20, 2025.

Taliban authorities did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

The ICC, based in The Hague, was set up to rule on the world's worst crimes, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity.

It has no police force of its own and relies on member states to carry out its arrest warrants -- with mixed results.

In theory, this means anyone subject to an ICC arrest warrant cannot travel to a member state for fear of being detained.

After sweeping back to power in August 2021, the Taliban authorities pledged a softer rule than their first stint from 1996 to 2001.

But they quickly imposed restrictions on women and girls that the United Nations has labelled "gender apartheid".

Edicts in line with their interpretation of Islamic law handed down by Akhundzada, who rules by decree from the movement's birthplace in southern Kandahar, have squeezed women and girls from public life.

The Taliban government barred girls from secondary school and women from university in the first 18 months after they ousted the US-backed government, making Afghanistan the only country in the world to impose such bans.

Authorities imposed restrictions on women working for non-governmental groups and other employment, with thousands of women losing government jobs -- or being paid to stay home.

Beauty salons have been closed and women blocked from visiting public parks, gyms and baths as well as travelling long distances without a male chaperone.

A "vice and virtue" law announced last year ordered women not to sing or recite poetry in public and for their voices and bodies to be "concealed" outside the home.

The ICC prosecutor's office welcomed the warrants as "an important vindication and acknowledgement of the rights of Afghan women and girls."

"Through the Taliban's deprivation of fundamental rights to education, privacy and family life... Afghan women and girls were increasingly erased from public life," said ICC prosecutors.

"The decision of the judges of the ICC affirms that their rights are valuable, and that their plight and voices matter."

When requesting the arrest warrants in January, chief prosecutor Karim Khan warned he would seek warrants for other Taliban officials.

Agnes Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, said the ICC warrants gave hope to women and girls inside and outside Afghanistan.

Liz Evenson, international justice director at Human Rights Watch, said the arrest warrants showed that "when justice is supported, victims can have their day in court."

Cairo (AFP) – At least four people were killed and 27 injured in a fire at a major telecomms centre in Egypt's capital that caused widespread disruptions, the health ministry said on Tuesday.

Internet and phone connections were still heavily disrupted in Cairo on Tuesday, with the Egyptian stock exchange suspending operations.

Flights into and out of the capital had also been affected by the fire, which began on Monday evening, although by the following morning the civil aviation ministry said all flights had resumed following delays caused by the blaze.

Gas and electricity outages were also reported on Monday by Cairo governor Ibrahim Saber.

"Civil defence forces recovered four bodies from the scene of the incident," the healthy ministry said in a statement.

The authorities are yet to announce a cause for the fire, nor has any information been given about the 27 injured.

Local media reported that the fire at the Ramses Exchange, the former communications ministry headquarters, was extinguished on Monday night.

Brussels (Belgium) (AFP) – EU ministers gave the final green light on Tuesday for Bulgaria to adopt the euro on January 1, 2026, making it the single currency area's 21st member.

Bulgaria's switch from the lev to the euro comes nearly 19 years after the country of 6.4 million people joined the European Union.

"We did it!" Bulgarian Prime Minister Rossen Jeliazkov said.

"We thank all institutions, partners and everyone whose efforts made this landmark moment possible. The government remains committed to a smooth and effective transition to the euro in the interest of all citizens," Jeliazkov said on X.

In adopting the legal texts necessary for the move, EU finance ministers officially set the euro at 1.95583 Bulgarian lev.

"Joining the euro area is much more than just about replacing lev with euro. It is about building a brighter and more prosperous future for Bulgaria and its citizens at the heart of Europe," EU economy chief Valdis Dombrovskis said after the approval.

"The euro will bring new opportunities, investments, jobs and growth," he said.

The European Commission last month said the EU's poorest country had fulfilled the strict conditions to adopt the euro, while the European Central Bank (ECB) also gave a positive opinion.

Bulgaria's journey to joining the eurozone has had a stormy political backdrop with seven elections in three years -- the last in October 2024.

But recent polls show Bulgarian society remains divided on the euro, with experts attributing the scepticism largely to fears of rising prices and declining purchasing power.

President Rumen Radev shocked many when he proposed holding a referendum on the matter but that was given short shrift by the Bulgarian parliament.

Since June, protesters have gathered in Sofia to call for "keeping the Bulgarian lev". A symbolic protest camp with several tents has been set up near the presidency and the Bulgarian National Bank in the capital.

Far-right opposition parties have used the issue to promote anti-EU narratives.

Proponents in Bulgaria, however, insist the move will help improve the country's economy, and reinforce its ties to the West and protect against Russia's influence.

"The political benefits are becoming increasingly significant, as the protests against the euro seem to bear the mark of the Kremlin," 43-year-old musician Veselin Dimitrov told AFP in Sofia.

The green light comes as the euro has been gaining in value against the US dollar as President Donald Trump's protectionist trade policies shake trust in the US currency.

Only 12 countries were part of the single currency area -- including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Greece -- when the first euro bills and coins were rolled out on January 1, 2002.

It gradually widened with Slovenia joining in 2007, Cyprus and Malta in 2008, Slovakia in 2009, Estonia in 2011, Latvia in 2014 then Lithuania in 2015.

Croatia was the last country to join in 2023, bringing the total to 20.

Bulgaria wanted to adopt the euro sooner but Brussels judged its inflation was too high to meet the necessary criteria.

EU states that want to join the single currency must demonstrate that their economy has converged with other eurozone countries and that they have their finances under control.

The conditions include holding inflation to no more than 1.5 percentage points higher than the rate of the three best-performing EU countries.

When Brussels gave its backing in June, it said Bulgaria's average inflation rate during the 12 months to April 2025 was 2.7 percent, just below the needed level.

New Delhi (AFP) – Indian villagers beat a family of five to death and dumped their corpses in a lake， accusing them of "practising witchcraft" after the death of a boy, police said Tuesday.

Three people have been arrested and have confessed to the crime, police in the northern state of Bihar said in a statement.

Three women -- including a 75-year-old -- were among those murdered.

The main accused believed that his son's recent death was caused by one of those killed, and blamed "him and his family of practising witchcraft", the statement said.

"After beating the victims to death, the perpetrators loaded the bodies onto a tractor and dumped them in a pond," police said.

The murderers and victims all belonged to India's Oraon tribe in Bihar, India's poorest state and a mainly Hindu region of at least 130 million people.

Despite campaigns against superstition, belief in witchcraft remains widespread in rural areas across India, especially in isolated tribal communities.

Some states, including Bihar, have introduced laws to try to curb crimes against people accused of witchcraft and superstition.

Women have often been branded witches and targeted, but the killing of the family of five stands out as a particularly heinous recent example.

More than 1,500 people -- the overwhelming majority of them women -- were killed in India on suspicion of witchcraft between 2010 and 2021, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.

Some believe in the occult, but attackers also sometimes have other motives including usurping their rights over land and property.

Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – Gaza's civil defence agency on Tuesday said that 29 people were killed in Israeli strikes across the Palestinian territory devastated by 21 months of war.

Among those were nine people killed in a drone strike on a camp for displaced people near Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza, according to civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal.

Shaimaa Al-Shaer, 30, a resident of the Al-Sanabel camp, told AFP: "I was in front of my tent preparing breakfast for my four children -- beans and a bit of dry bread. Suddenly, there was an explosion.

"Smoke and dust filled the area. Debris and stones flew in all directions and hit our tent," she added.

"Four children who were playing in front of the neighbouring tent were injured. I saw people carrying martyrs. We don't know where death comes from, the bombings continue."

Bassal said that 20 other people, including at least three children and two women, were killed in six other strikes on Tuesday across the Gaza Strip.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military when contacted by AFP.

Doha (AFP) – Qatar said Tuesday more time was needed for negotiations for a Gaza ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, after US President Donald Trump voiced optimism about a possible breakthrough.

"I don't think that I can give any timeline at the moment, but I can say right now that we will need time for this," Qatar's foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari said as indirect negotiations continued into a third day in Doha.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington, meanwhile, on his third visit to the White House since Trump returned to power.

Trump, who is pushing for a ceasefire, expressed confidence a deal could be reached, saying: "I don't think there is a hold-up. I think things are going along very well."

Qatar, a mediator along with the United States and Egypt, said the meetings in Doha were focused on a framework for the talks, while a Palestinian official close to the negotiations said no breakthrough had been achieved so far.

Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff was set to join the talks in Doha this week.

On the ground, five Israeli soldiers were killed in combat in northern Gaza -- one of the deadliest days this year for Israeli forces in the Palestinian territory.

Gaza's civil defence meanwhile reported 29 killed in Israeli strikes on Tuesday.

Israel and Hamas began the latest round of negotiations on Sunday, with representatives seated in separate rooms within the same building.

At the White House, sitting across from Netanyahu, Trump said Hamas was willing to end the Gaza conflict, now in its 22nd month.

"They want to meet and they want to have that ceasefire," Trump said when asked if ongoing clashes would derail talks.

An Israeli official accompanying Netanyahu to Washington said the proposal under discussion was "80-90 percent of what Israel wanted."

"I believe that with military and political pressure, all the hostages can be returned," the official told Israeli media.

According to Ariel Kahana of Israel Hayom daily, "President Trump and his advisers are currently exerting considerable effort to reach an agreement that would lead to the release of the hostages and could even end the war in Gaza".

However, far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir opposed negotiations with Hamas, saying that "there is no need to negotiate with those who murder our fighters; they must be torn to shreds".

Gaza's civil defence agency reported 29 people killed in Israeli strikes across the territory, including three children.

Mahmud Bassal, a spokesman for the agency, said nine of those were killed in a drone strike on a camp for displaced people in southern Gaza.

"I was in front of my tent preparing breakfast for my four children -- beans and a bit of dry bread. Suddenly, there was an explosion," said Shaimaa Al-Shaer, 30, who lives in the camp.

While Israel has the full backing of the Trump administration, the US leader has increasingly pushed for an end to what he called the "hell" in Gaza and said on Sunday he believed there was a "good chance" of an agreement this coming week.

"The utmost priority for the president right now in the Middle East is to end the war in Gaza and to return all of the hostages," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said.

The US proposal included a 60-day truce, during which Hamas would release 10 living hostages and several bodies in exchange for Palestinians detained by Israel, two Palestinian sources close to the discussions had earlier told AFP.

Hamas was also demanding certain conditions for Israel's withdrawal, guarantees against a resumption of fighting during negotiations, and the return of the UN-led aid distribution system, they said.