3 Libyan Leaders Agree on Necessity of Forming New Unified Government

Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit, seated center left, meets with leaders of three parties of the conflict in Libya, at the Arab League headquarters, in Cairo, Egypt, Sunday, March 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahmed Hatem)
Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit, seated center left, meets with leaders of three parties of the conflict in Libya, at the Arab League headquarters, in Cairo, Egypt, Sunday, March 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahmed Hatem)
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3 Libyan Leaders Agree on Necessity of Forming New Unified Government

Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit, seated center left, meets with leaders of three parties of the conflict in Libya, at the Arab League headquarters, in Cairo, Egypt, Sunday, March 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahmed Hatem)
Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit, seated center left, meets with leaders of three parties of the conflict in Libya, at the Arab League headquarters, in Cairo, Egypt, Sunday, March 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahmed Hatem)

Three key Libyan leaders said on Sunday they had agreed on the "necessity" of forming a new unified government that would supervise the elections.
The leaders are the president of the Presidential Council (PC) Mohamed Menfi, the head of High State Council (HSC) Mohamed Takala, who are both based in Tripoli, and Aguila Saleh, speaker of the House of Representatives (HoR) in Benghazi.

They met in Cairo at the invitation of Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit.

In a joint statement, the three leaders called on the UN Mission in Libya and the international community to support their proposals.

They said they had agreed to form a technical committee to "look into controversial points.”

"The measures that were agreed upon today, we believe, are a very important beginning. They are results that live up to the ambition of Libyans to hold elections," Menfi told the media after the meeting.



WHO Sends Over 1 Mln Polio Vaccines to Gaza to Protect Children 

Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
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WHO Sends Over 1 Mln Polio Vaccines to Gaza to Protect Children 

Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)

The World Health Organization is sending more than one million polio vaccines to Gaza to be administered over the coming weeks to prevent children being infected after the virus was detected in sewage samples, its chief said on Friday.

"While no cases of polio have been recorded yet, without immediate action, it is just a matter of time before it reaches the thousands of children who have been left unprotected," Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in an opinion piece in Britain's The Guardian newspaper.

He wrote that children under five were most at risk from the viral disease, and especially infants under two since normal vaccination campaigns have been disrupted by more than nine months of conflict.

Poliomyelitis, which is spread mainly through the fecal-oral route, is a highly infectious virus that can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis. Cases of polio have declined by 99% worldwide since 1988 thanks to mass vaccination campaigns and efforts continue to eradicate it completely.

Israel's military said on Sunday it would start offering the polio vaccine to soldiers serving in the Gaza Strip after remnants of the virus were found in test samples in the enclave.

Besides polio, the UN reported last week a widespread increase in cases of Hepatitis A, dysentery and gastroenteritis as sanitary conditions deteriorate in Gaza, with sewage spilling into the streets near some camps for displaced people.