TRIPOLI: The United Nations said Thursday it would work toward helping Libya’s rival factions agree on contested points preventing long-delayed presidential and legislative elections being held in the conflict-scarred nation.
Early Wednesday, envoys of Libya’s factions said after more than two weeks of talks in Morocco they had agreed on the legal steps required for new elections.
But they stopped short of signing an agreement, indicating that they had differences that still need to be resolved.
Elections in the North African country had been due in December 2021 but were never organized, as disputes persisted on key issues including who should stand in the polls.
Libya has been torn by more than a decade of stop-start conflict since a 2011 revolt toppled strongman Muammar Qaddafi, with myriad militias forming opposing alliances backed by foreign powers.
The country remains split between a nominally interim government in Tripoli in the west, and another in the east backed by military strongman Khalifa Haftar.
On Thursday, the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) said in a statement it “takes note” of the outcome of the Morocco talks.
It said UNSMIL will work “to facilitate a process among all actors to address the contested elements of the electoral framework” with the aim of securing “the necessary political agreement on the path to elections.”
The UN mission urged everyone involved “in a spirit of compromise, to address all outstanding issues and create a safer and more conducive environment for the holding of elections in 2023.”
Among the contested points are the candidacy of dual nationals and soldiers.
Haftar also hold US citizenship, and his detractors accuse him of seeking to restore military dictatorship in Libya.
The UN envoy to Libya Abdoulaye Bathily did not attend the talks in Morocco, but on Thursday the UNSMIL statement urged “all players to refrain from delay tactics aimed at prolonging the stalemate.”
The UN appeal was supported by representatives in Tripoli of both the United States and the European Union.
UN seeks agreement on Libya vote sticking points
https://arab.news/6u7ze
UN seeks agreement on Libya vote sticking points
- Envoys of Libya's factions said after more than two weeks of talks in Morocco they had agreed on the legal steps required for new elections
- The United Nations Support Mission in Libya said in a statement it "takes note" of the outcome of the Morocco talks
Syria monitor says security forces kill four in former Assad bastion
Mustafa Kneifati, a security official in Latakia province, said that “during the operation, the criminal cell threw bombs at the security patrols, wounding a number of personnel“
BEIRUT: A Syrian Arab Republic war monitor said Wednesday that four civilians have been killed in a security operation in the coastal city of Latakia that was launched after a deadly attack on security services.
Latakia province is a former stronghold of the government of ousted president Bashar Assad and the heartland of his family’s Alawite minority.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the operation in the city’s Daatur district killed “four civilians,” including two “guards at a local school” on Tuesday and two construction workers on Wednesday.
State media had said that forces launched the campaign after “militia remnants” supporting Assad killed two personnel in an ambush.
Mustafa Kneifati, a security official in Latakia province, said that “during the operation, the criminal cell threw bombs at the security patrols, wounding a number of personnel.”
“Our forces responded immediately to the sources of fire and managed to arrest a number of people involved in these criminal acts, and neutralized a number of others,” Kneifati added in a statement on the interior ministry’s Telegram channel.
The Observatory said “a cautious calm” returned to Daatur “after the arrest of a number of residents and wanted persons.”
Restoring and maintaining security across Syria remains one of the most pressing challenges for the new authorities after Islamist-led rebels overthrew Assad on December 8.
In Sanamayn, in the Daraa province in the south, the Observatory said security forces carried out a “large-scale campaign... searching for wanted men and weapons.”
The operation came a day after clashes in the city between security forces and a group linked to the ousted government’s military security killed three fighters and wounded “three civilians including a child,” the Britain-based Observatory said.
Daraa province’s Telegram channel reported ongoing “military operations to purge the area of armed elements.”
A local security official, Abdul-Razzaq Al-Khatib, was quoted as saying that “military reinforcements” reached the city in the morning, with clashes ongoing in buildings in the southwest.
He said Tuesday’s clashes resulted in an unspecified number of casualties, while gunfire also wounded a member of the security forces at a checkpoint.
Daraa province, the cradle of the 2011 uprising which led to Syria’s civil war, returned to government control in 2018 but has been plagued by unrest in recent years.
Syria has seen clashes and shootings in a number of areas, often blamed on Assad supporters, with the new authorities announcing campaigns targeting “regime remnants” and making arrests.
Latakia initially saw heightened tensions and violence, including reprisals against people seen as linked to the former government, though incidents have decreased somewhat despite occasional attacks on checkpoints, according to the Observatory.
Israel destroys West Bank homes of 2 alleged Palestinian attackers
HEBRON: The Israeli military said it demolished two homes on Wednesday in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron belonging to Palestinians accused of carrying out a deadly attack in Tel Aviv in October of 2024.
In a statement, the military said its forces “destroyed in Hebron the homes of the two terrorists who carried out the attack at the Jaffa light rail station in which seven Israelis and foreign residents were murdered and 15 additional civilians were injured.”
The attack took place on October 1 last year, just as Iran was launching a wave of around 200 missiles at Israel in support of its allies Hamas and Hezbollah.
Hamas, which had been at war with Israel since its October 7, 2023 attack, claimed responsibility for the Tel Aviv shootings, and said they “coincided with the painful strikes... executed by Iran.”
The assailants, armed with “an M-16 automatic rifle, several magazines, and a knife,” according to Israeli police, had opened fire on tram passengers and pedestrians.
One of the attackers, 19-year-old Muhammad Misk, was shot dead in the street, while the other, Ahmad Al-Haimoni, was wounded and arrested, police said.
Haimoni had lived on the second story of a three-story house. The middle floor of the structure was demolished with explosives, according to an AFP photographer at the scene.
Israel, whose army has occupied the West Bank since 1967, regularly destroys the homes of Palestinians accused of carrying out attacks against Israelis.
The government argues that these demolitions serve as a deterrent, but critics denounce them as collective punishment that leaves families homeless.
Violence has soared throughout the West Bank since the war between Hamas and Israel broke out in Gaza.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 905 Palestinians, including many militants, in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
At least 32 Israelis, including soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or Israeli military operations, according to official Israeli figures.
Paramilitary shelling of Sudan camp kills 6: activists
PORT SUDAN: Paramilitary shelling of a famine-hit displacement camp near North Darfur’s besieged capital of El-Fasher killed six people on Wednesday, activists in Sudan said.
The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), locked in a brutal conflict with the regular army since April 2023, pressed an attack on the Abu Shouk camp, said the local resistance committee, one of hundreds of volunteer groups coordinating aid across Sudan.
Wednesday’s shelling came a day after the group reported 80 casualties from artillery fire on Tuesday, although it could not confirm the exact numbers of dead and wounded.
The RSF assault on the camp began on Sunday, the second day of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan in the northeast African country.
Civilians had been shopping for Ramadan supplies when shells hit the camp and a crowded market nearby, killing six people, rescuers said.
The attacks come as the RSF keeps up its months-long siege of El-Fasher, the last state capital in the vast western region of Darfur still under army control.
Fighting around the city has seen the army and allied forces repel repeated paramilitary attacks as civilians bear the brunt of relentless shelling.
The RSF holds nearly all of Darfur while the army controls the country’s east and north and has this year made gains in the capital Khartoum and central Sudan.
The war has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people and uprooted more than 12 million, making it the “biggest humanitarian crisis ever recorded,” according to the International Rescue Committee.
In North Darfur alone, nearly 1.7 million people are displaced.
Around two million people face extreme food insecurity, and 320,000 are already suffering famine conditions, according to UN estimates.
Famine has hit three displacement camps around El-Fasher — Zamzam, Abu Shouk and Al-Salam — and is expected to spread to five more areas, including El-Fasher itself, by May.
UN food agency says it has 2 weeks’ worth of supplies in Gaza
- World Food Program said Wednesday that its stocks are low because it prioritized delivering food to the population
- UN agency also warned that its fuel stocks would only last for a few weeks
GAZA: The UN food agency says it only has enough food supplies in the Gaza Strip to keep public kitchens and bakeries open for less than two weeks, after Israel halted the entry of food, fuel, medicine and other supplies.
The Israeli blockade over the weekend is aimed at pressuring Hamas to accept an alternative ceasefire arrangement six weeks into their fragile truce.
Israel allowed a surge of humanitarian aid during the first six weeks of the ceasefire. But the World Food Program said Wednesday that its stocks are low because it prioritized delivering food to the population. The UN agency also warned that its fuel stocks would only last for a few weeks.
Palestinians said prices spiked as people rushed to markets to stock up on supplies after Israel announced the tightening of its blockade. After more than 16 months of war, Gaza’s population is entirely dependent on trucked-in food and other aid. Most are displaced from their homes, and many need shelter.
The suspension of aid drew widespread criticism, with human rights groups saying that it violated Israel’s obligations as an occupying power under international law.
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip welcomed Arab leaders’ adoption of a plan to rebuild the territory without depopulating it.
“We are satisfied with these decisions and this summit,” said Atef Abu Zaher, from the southern city of Khan Younis. “We are clinging to our land.”
The plan advanced at the Arab summit in Cairo on Tuesday is seen as an alternative to US President Donald Trump’s proposal to resettle Gaza’s roughly 2 million Palestinians in other countries and redevelop it as a beach destination.
Israel’s new army chief says mission against Hamas ‘not accomplished’
- “Hamas has indeed suffered a severe blow, but it has not yet been defeated. The mission is not yet accomplished,” Zamir said
- Zamir is replacing Herzi Halevi, who announced his resignation as armed forces chief in January over the military’s shortcomings on October 7
JERUSALEM: Israel’s newly appointed military chief Eyal Zamir said Wednesday that his country’s mission to defeat Hamas was not yet accomplished, with his inauguration coming at a precarious moment for the fragile truce in Gaza.
Speaking before Zamir at a ceremony at military headquarters in Tel Aviv, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was “determined” to achieve victory in the multi-front war that began with Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack.
The remarks come after Arab leaders endorsed on Tuesday a plan to rebuild the Gaza Strip under the future administration of the Palestinian Authority, presenting an alternative to US President Donald Trump’s widely condemned proposal to take over the territory and displace its people.
But the prospect of the PA governing Gaza remains far from certain, with Israel having ruled out any future role for the body in the territory ruled by Hamas since 2007.
“Hamas has indeed suffered a severe blow, but it has not yet been defeated. The mission is not yet accomplished,” Zamir said, amid a deadlock in negotiations on next steps in the ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza.
Zamir is replacing Herzi Halevi, who announced his resignation as armed forces chief in January over the military’s shortcomings on October 7.
The military has since released the findings of an internal investigation that acknowledged its “complete failure” to prevent the deadliest attack on Israel since its creation.
The Hamas assault resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, most of them civilians, while Israel’s military retaliation in Gaza has killed at least 48,405 people, also mostly civilians, data from both sides show.
The war in Gaza has left the territory largely in ruins and created a dire humanitarian crisis.
An Arab League summit on Tuesday announced the adoption of a “comprehensive” plan for Gaza’s reconstruction, to be financed by a trust fund, and urged the international community to offer its support.
An initial draft of the plan seen by AFP outlined a five-year roadmap with a price tag of $53 billion — roughly the amount the United Nations estimated for Gaza’s reconstruction — but the figure was not included in the summit’s final statement.
“All these efforts are proceeding in parallel with the launch of a political track” toward Palestinian statehood, it reads, an ambition that Israeli leaders have opposed.
The summit also called on Palestinian representation to be unified under the PLO, an umbrella group that is the dominant political force within the Palestinian Authority — a move that could sideline Islamist Hamas, which is not a member.
The Arab plan was a direct response to the one floated by Trump, who triggered global outrage by suggesting the United States “take over” Gaza and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East,” while forcing its Palestinian inhabitants to relocate to Egypt or Jordan.
Hugh Lovatt, a senior policy fellow with the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the new plan was “not as shaky as what the Americans are proposing.”
“It’s far more realistic than what the Trump administration is proposing in terms of being able to be operationalized,” he added.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said the plan would seek backing from Muslim nations at an emergency summit of Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) foreign ministers scheduled for Friday in Jeddah.
The ceasefire deal’s first phase ended last month, after six weeks of relative calm that included exchanges of Israeli hostages taken on October 7 for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
While Israel has said it wants to extend the first phase until mid-April, Hamas has insisted on a transition to the deal’s second phase, which should lead to a permanent end to the war.
Of the 251 hostages taken on October 7, 58 remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military has confirmed are dead
Netanyahu has faced sustained pressure throughout the war from the hostages’ families and supporters to strike a deal to bring them home.
“It’s very hard for me that the country still hasn’t completed the process of bringing back the hostages,” said Yael Lotem, who came out on Wednesday to watch the funeral procession of slain hostage Ohad Yahalomi.
“It was possible to bring them all back alive, and that didn’t happen.”
