Threats to Topple Upcoming Libyan Government

The entrance to the Libyan House of Representatives
The entrance to the Libyan House of Representatives
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Threats to Topple Upcoming Libyan Government

The entrance to the Libyan House of Representatives
The entrance to the Libyan House of Representatives

Libyan lawmakers have been vocal about their doubts regarding a UN-sponsored political dialogue to be held in Geneva next month, mistrusting intentions for forming a national unity government.
The parliamentarians pledged they would topple the next government if they deemed it illegitimate.

“The UN mission intends to selectively expand the dialogue committee by adding more personalities, without clear criteria for how this selection is made, or who these figures represent, or how will the results of its work be approved,” the centrist bloc at the eastern-based parliament said.

“Such actions by the mission have stirred doubts and raised suspicions towards the sincerity behind forming a national unity cabinet away from international influence,” the bloc added in a statement.

If the UN mission goes forth with adding figures to the dialogue without national consensus, it would have explicitly violated Security Council resolutions, the political agreement and the outcomes of the national dialogue held in Berlin.

“It would be considered a transgression of its powers and a blatant interference that would not serve the interest of the nation,” the bloc said.

Doubts shrouding the political process are present despite the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) confirming that it is not responsible about selection roasters leaked and circulated within Libyan circles.

Everything circulated by the media about lists of participants is incorrect, the Deputy Spokesperson at UNSMIL Jean Al Alam asserted, adding that so long the names have not been verified by UNSMIL or published on the mission’s official website or official pages on social media, they remain unsupported.

House of Representatives member for Tarhuna Abu Bakr Ahmed Said, speaking about international and regional mobilization on the Libya crisis, said he believes that all meetings aim at settling a power-sharing agreement, imposing foreign agendas and keeping the same elites in power.



WHO: 15 Gaza Children Going to Spain for Urgent Care

Palestinian boy Ahmed Qannan, who is suffering from malnutrition, is attended to at a healthcare center, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, March 4, 2024. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem Purchase Licensing Rights
Palestinian boy Ahmed Qannan, who is suffering from malnutrition, is attended to at a healthcare center, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, March 4, 2024. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem Purchase Licensing Rights
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WHO: 15 Gaza Children Going to Spain for Urgent Care

Palestinian boy Ahmed Qannan, who is suffering from malnutrition, is attended to at a healthcare center, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, March 4, 2024. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem Purchase Licensing Rights
Palestinian boy Ahmed Qannan, who is suffering from malnutrition, is attended to at a healthcare center, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, March 4, 2024. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem Purchase Licensing Rights

The World Health Organization said Wednesday that 15 children and one adult from war-ravaged Gaza were travelling from Egypt to Spain to receive care for complicated medical conditions.

The children were aged three to 17, and the mother of one of the children was also due to receive treatment in Spain, the UN health agency said, AFP reported.

“These very sick children will be getting the care they need thanks to cooperation between several partners and countries,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.

The patients had been hospitalized in Egypt for several months after evacuating from Gaza, the WHO said, adding that they were among thousands of children and adults from Gaza in need to access specialized medical care outside of the Palestinian territory.

Hailing “the support and facilitation provided by Egypt and Spain,” Tedros urged “other countries who have the capacity and medical facilities to welcome people who, through no fault of their own, are caught in the grips of this war”.

The children, who were accompanied by 25 family members and other caregivers, had been in Egypt since before May 6, when the Rafah border crossing was closed, making evacuations all but impossible.

Only 23 people have been evacuated since then, via the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing, WHO said.

Since the war in Gaza erupted after Hamas’s deadly October 7 attack inside southern Israel, around 5,000 people have been evacuated for treatment outside the territory, with more than 80 percent receiving care in Egypt, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, it added.

Wednesday’s statement said that at least another 10,000 people were waiting for urgent medical evacuation from the Gaza Strip.

A top agency official suggested earlier this week that the number might have swelled to as many as 14,000.

The evacuated children “are just the tip of the iceberg,” Hanan Balkhy, WHO’s regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean, said in the statement.

The agency appealed for the establishment of multiple medical evacuation corridors from Gaza, including through Rafah and Kerem Shalom.

Of utmost urgency, it said, was “the restoration of medical evacuations from Gaza to the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, where hospitals are ready to receive patients”.

“Patients must also be facilitated to be transferred to Egypt and Jordan, and from there to other countries when needed.”

Tedros hailed the solidarity shown in this case as “a bright spot in a war that has had so many moments of tragedy”.

“The fact that severely ill people are receiving needed medical care should not be headline news, but routine global cooperation,” he said.