Israel-Hamas war latest: Netanyahu is in Washington to address Congress ahead of cease-fire talks

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in Washington to address Congress on Wednesday. He has signaled that a cease-fire deal could be taking shape after nine months of war.

Palestinians displaced by the Israeli military’s latest order to leave parts of the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis say they are sleeping in the streets. The Health Ministry in Gaza says over 39,100 Palestinians have been killed in the war.

On Thursday, officials from Egypt, Israel, the United States and Qatar will meet in Doha with the aim of resuming talks for a proposed three-phase cease-fire to end the war between Israel and Hamas and free the remaining hostages.

Here’s the latest:

TULKAREM, West Bank — Hundreds of mourners have attended the funeral of two people killed during an Israeli raid in the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem that killed six people, at least three of them known militants. The bodies of Iman Juma’a, a 50-year-old woman, and Yazan Abdo, a 30-year-old man, were carried through the streets.

On Wednesday, the Israeli military released footage of a person dressed as a woman wearing a paramedic vest and holding a gun, but did not show the person’s face. The video could not be independently verified by the AP, and the military did not provide any further evidence.

At the funeral, the body of Juma’a was covered with a paramedic jacket.

Tulkarem and its two refugee camps have become a flashpoint in the West Bank and are regularly raided by Israeli forces. Palestinian militant groups, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, are active in the city.

JERUSALEM — Israel’s far-right national security minister says Jews are allowed to pray at Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site, threatening to stoke tensions that are already soaring over the war in Gaza.

Itamar Ben-Gvir has said before it's his policy that Jews should be able to pray at the hilltop compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. But his statement on Wednesday comes at a politically sensitive time, hours before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to a joint session of Congress in Washington.

Netanyahu’s office quickly released a statement saying nothing had changed in the decades-old arrangement that prohibits Jewish prayer at the site.

“I am the political echelon and the political echelon permits Jewish prayer there,” Ben Gvir said during a conference focused on Jewish access to the compound.

Since Israel captured the site in the 1967 Mideast war, Jews have been allowed to visit but not pray there. Perceived encroachments have set off widespread violence on a number of occasions going back decades.

JERUSALEM — Billionaire Elon Musk in a statement on X says his satellite internet service Starlink is active for a hospital in Gaza, as the besieged territory has faced months of communication issues.

Israel’s Communication Ministry said the service has been in use at the Emirati-run field hospital in Rafah in southern Gaza for the past six months, and they were unclear why Musk mentioned it Wednesday.

During a visit to Israel in November, Musk met with Israel’s Communications Minister Shlomi Karhi and agreed that Starlink would operate in Gaza only with approval from the Israeli government. In February, the ministry announced that Starlink would be available at certain hospitals in Gaza for videoconferencing.

Gaza has experienced frequent communications blackouts as the infrastructure crumbles with months of fighting and a lack of fuel.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — The Gaza Health Ministry says the bodies of 55 people killed by Israeli strikes have been brought to local hospitals over the past 24 hours.

Hospitals also received 110 wounded, the ministry said Wednesday. The ministry doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.

The overall Palestinian death toll from the Israel-Hamas war rose to at least 39,145, the ministry said, and another 90,257 have been wounded.

Israel launched the war in Gaza after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, in which militants stormed into southern Israel, killed some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducted about 250.

BEIRUT — An Israeli delegation will head to Cairo on Wednesday for negations with Egyptian officials, according to Lebanon’s daily Al-Akhbar newspaper, which is close to Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group. According to Egyptian sources, the negotiations will focus on the Rafah border crossing and Philadelphi corridor.

On Thursday, officials from Egypt, Israel, the United States and Qatar will meet in Doha with the aim of resuming talks for a proposed three-phase cease-fire to end the war between Israel and Hamas, Al-Akhbar said. It added that Egyptian and Qatari mediators see that the first phase of the deal is close but they are concerned that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might destroy a possible deal in the final hours.

A spokesperson for Netanyahu’s office confirmed that a delegation is expected in Cairo.

BEIRUT — An umbrella group of Iran-backed factions in Iraq says it has carried out an attack with drones on “a vital target” in the southern Israeli city of Eilat.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq said the early Wednesday attack comes in retaliation for what it called Israel’s massacres in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli military said its air force shot down two drones that were flying toward Israel from the east. It added that the drones did not enter Israel’s air space.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq has claimed responsibility for scores of attacks against Israel in recent months, but most of the drones were shot down before reaching their targets. A drone attack by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi last week rebels killed one person in the center of Tel Aviv and wounded at least 10 others near the United States Embassy.