Middle East updates: Netanyahu to address US lawmakers

The Lebanese Iranian-backed armed group Hezbollah broadcast a drone video it said showed air defense systems, aircraft and fuel depots at Israel's Ramat David air base, nearly 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the border to Lebanon.

The video was more than eight minutes long and, Hezbollah said, was filmed mostly on Tuesday. It also included nighttime footage that Hezbollah said was taken "earlier" and other images the group said were taken in July.

It was the third in a series of videos released by Hezbollah that the group said were meant to demonstrate how far its surveillance of Israel has gone. The first video showed the Israeli port city of Haifa, and the second showed the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

An Israeli military spokesman said in a statement on X that the video was filmed by a surveillance drone and that the base's operations were not affected.

Hezbollah is an Iran-backed Shiite political party and militant group in Lebanon. Hezbollah is considered a terrorist organization by the US, Germany and several Sunni Arab countries, while the EU lists its armed wing as a terrorist group.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there has been no change in prayer arrangements at a flashpoint holy site in Jerusalem's Old City. The comments came after a far-right minister in his ruling coalition said there had been a policy shift.

"Israel's policy of maintaining the status quo on the Temple Mount has not changed and will not change," Netanyahu's office wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Earlier in the day, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said that Israel's "political echelon," of which he said he is a member, "allows Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount."

The compound in the walled Old City houses the Al-Aqsa mosque, Islam's third holiest shrine, and is also revered in Judaism as the Temple Mount, a remnant of two ancient temples.

The site is at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Under a decades-old "status quo" arrangement with Muslim authorities, Israel allows Jews to visit on the condition that they refrain from praying or other religious rituals.

In addition to the Prime Minister's Office, Israeli police denied Jews were allowed to pray at the site. 

"We do not allow [Jewish] prayer at the Temple Mount," Eyal Avraham, commander of the Israeli police's holy sites unit, says in a video on the Israeli Walla news site.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called Ben-Gvir a "pyroman who is trying to set the Middle East on fire." 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to address US lawmakers on Wednesday, with his speech marking the first time a foreign leader has addressed Congress four times.

He is due to hold talks with President Joe Biden on Thursday. The leaders will discuss progress towards a cease-fire in Gaza and a hostage release, the White House said.

Vice President Kamala Harris will meet separately with Netanyahu, who is also scheduled to meet with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Friday.

Netanyahu's speech is likely to focus on the conflict in Gaza, which followed the October 7 Hamas attack on Israeli civilians.

Netanyahu's visit has already sparked protests in the United States. Police arrested multiple protesters on Tuesday night as they sat inside the Cannon House rotunda, part of the US Capitol complex.

The demonstration, organized by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), was called in opposition to Netanyahu's planned speech.

Police officials told reporters that protests are not permitted inside Cannon House, and so the arrests commenced when demonstrators refused to leave.

dh/sms (AP, AFP, dpa, Reuters)

The Starlink satellite internet service has been activated in a hospital in the Gaza Strip with the help of Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Elon Musk said of the communication network owned by Musk's SpaceX.

"Starlink is now active in a Gaza hospital with the support of @UAEmediaoffice and @Israel," Musk posted on X.

The move comes more than five months after the Israeli government approved Starlink's use in the hospital in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

Starlink is a network of satellites in low Earth orbit that can provide internet to remote locations or areas that have had normal communications infrastructure disabled or destroyed.

The UAE said the high-speed internet would enable potentially life-saving medical consultations via real-time video calling.

UAE's foreign minister thanked Musk for supporting the country's field hospital in Gaza.