ADIS ABABA: The African Union called for a permanent ceasefire in Libya on Saturday after deadly clashes in the capital earlier this month and demonstrations demanding the prime minister’s resignation.
The latest fighting in the conflict-torn North African country pitted an armed group aligned with the Tripoli-based government against factions it has sought to dismantle, resulting in at least eight dead, according to the United Nations.
Despite a lack of a formal ceasefire, the clashes mostly ended last week, with the Libya Defense Ministry saying this week that efforts toward a truce were “ongoing.”
On Saturday, the AU’s Peace and Security Council condemned the recent violence, calling for an “unconditional and permanent ceasefire.”
In a statement on X, the council urged “inclusive, Libyan-led reconciliation,” adding that it “appeals for no external interference.”
Libya is split between the UN-recognized government in Tripoli, led by Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah, and a rival administration in the east.
The country has remained deeply divided since the 2011 NATO-backed revolt that toppled and killed longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi.
The clashes were sparked by the killing of an armed faction leader by a group aligned with Dbeibah’s government — the 444 Brigade, which later fought a third group, the Radaa force that controls parts of eastern Tripoli and the city’s airport.
It came after Dbeibah announced a string of executive orders seeking to dismantle Radaa and dissolve other Tripoli-based armed groups but excluding the 444 Brigade.

LONDON: Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank have forced about 150 Palestinians from their village through a violent five-day campaign carried out under the protection of Israeli authorities.

Last weekend, the settler group had constructed an illegal outpost close to a Palestinian home in Mughayyir Al-Deir, east of Ramallah, The Guardian reported.

The village is home to shepherds and farmers, and by Friday this week dozens of villagers had moved their flocks away and had gathered their belongings to leave the area.

“Settlers stalked between Palestinian men who worked fast and largely in silence, grappling with the grim reality of leaving the place where most were born and grew up,” The Guardian reported. “A child cried as he was driven away on a truck loaded with the family’s red sofas.”

Israeli settlers belonging to the extremist group Hilltop Youth celebrated as Palestinian families left the village.

The group’s unofficial spokesperson, Elisha Yered, said: “This is what redemption looks like! This is a relatively large outpost that contained about 150 people from the enemy population, but it was broken.”

Several of the settlers involved in the illegal campaign, including Yered, are subject to UK and EU sanctions.

Yered was “part of a group of armed settlers” that carried out an attack in 2023 that killed Qusai Jammal Mi’tan, a 19-year-old Palestinian, sanctions files show.

Neria Ben Pazi and Zohar Sabah, two Israeli settlers under British sanctions, visited the illegal outpost at Mughayyir Al-Deir this week.

The hills surrounding the village are dotted with the ruins of other abandoned Palestinian homes, as settlers have waged a campaign to clear the area of locals.

In Mughayyir Al-Deir, Israeli police and military personnel stood guard and patrolled as the settlers began to build the outpost.

Zvi Sukkot, a far-right MP who said on TV last week that Israel “can kill 100 Gazans in one night during a war and nobody in the world cares,” visited the village to support the settlers.

A Palestinian family from Mughayyir Al-Deir filed a petition in Israel’s Supreme Court on Thursday.

They demanded an injunction and urgent hearing on the settler campaign, and asked why Israeli authorities had failed to intervene over the illegal outpost and evictions.

Many of the Palestinian families forced to leave the village had relatives who were forced to leave Beersheba during the Nakba in 1948, when some 750,000 Palestinians were forced to leave their homeland.

An Israeli military spokesperson said troops worked “to ensure the security of the state of Israel and Judea and Samaria (Israel’s name for the occupied West Bank).” The military will respond to the Palestinian family’s petition in court, the spokesperson said.

A hearing is scheduled for next week, but all Palestinian families will have left Mughayyir Al-Deir by then.