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UN Libya Forum Starts Voting for Country's Interim Presidency Council

This handout picture shows delegates standing during the national anthem at the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum on February 1, 2021 at an undisclosed location near Geneva. (UN via AFP)
This handout picture shows delegates standing during the national anthem at the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum on February 1, 2021 at an undisclosed location near Geneva. (UN via AFP)
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UN Libya Forum Starts Voting for Country's Interim Presidency Council

This handout picture shows delegates standing during the national anthem at the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum on February 1, 2021 at an undisclosed location near Geneva. (UN via AFP)
This handout picture shows delegates standing during the national anthem at the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum on February 1, 2021 at an undisclosed location near Geneva. (UN via AFP)

Participants in UN Libya talks in Switzerland cast votes on Tuesday for a new national presidency council to create a transitional government to oversee national elections in December, although no immediate winners emerged.

Candidates included the head of Libya’s eastern-based House of Representatives, Aguila Saleh, and Osama Juwaili, a Government of National Accord (GNA) military commander in the west.

The candidates for the three-person council must now consult with others to form regional lists which include nominees for prime minister before voting can resume.

Attempts to form a temporary government by the talks’ 75 participants, chosen by the UN last year to represent different strands of Libyan politics, is part of Libya’s biggest peacemaking effort in years.

But while the UN has hailed the progress as “positive”, praising the list of candidates as long and diverse, many Libyans remain skeptical after previous diplomatic efforts collapsed, and as key ceasefire terms remain unmet.

Some fear that losers in the process will violently reject it, that the transitional leaders will refuse to cede control once installed or that foreign powers will sabotage the process to defend their own interests.

The latest round of diplomacy accelerated after Khalifa Haftar’s eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) was beaten back from its 14-month assault on Tripoli, seat of the GNA, which is backed by Turkey.

Candidates for both the presidency council and the prime minister submitted to live, televised questioning before the votes and pledged not to stand in the December elections if selected.

The presidency council will act as a temporary head of state with the power to oversee the army, declare states of emergency and take decisions on war and peace in consultation with the parliament. It will also run a national reconciliation process.

The prime minister will form a new government for approval by the parliament, prepare a unified budget, oversee a roadmap to elections and decide on the structure and management of state bodies and institutions.

Candidates for that job include the GNA’s Interior Minister Fathi Bashagha and Defense Minister Salah al-Namroush.

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Israeli Settlers Rampage at a Military Base in the West Bank

Israeli soldiers stand guard as Israeli settlers tour in the old city-center and market of the Palestinian city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank on June 28, 2025. (Photo by HAZEM BADER / AFP)
Israeli soldiers stand guard as Israeli settlers tour in the old city-center and market of the Palestinian city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank on June 28, 2025. (Photo by HAZEM BADER / AFP)
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Israeli Settlers Rampage at a Military Base in the West Bank

Israeli soldiers stand guard as Israeli settlers tour in the old city-center and market of the Palestinian city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank on June 28, 2025. (Photo by HAZEM BADER / AFP)
Israeli soldiers stand guard as Israeli settlers tour in the old city-center and market of the Palestinian city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank on June 28, 2025. (Photo by HAZEM BADER / AFP)

Dozens of Israeli settlers rampaged around a military base in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, setting fires, vandalizing military vehicles, spraying graffiti and attacking soldiers, the military said.

Sunday night’s unrest came after several attacks in the West Bank carried out by Jewish settlers and anger at their arrests by security forces attempting to contain the violence over the past few days, The Associated Press said.

More than 100 settlers on Wednesday evening entered the West Bank town of Kfar Malik, setting property ablaze and opening fire on Palestinians who tried to stop them, Najeb Rostom, head of the local council, said. Three Palestinians were killed after the military intervened. Israeli security forces arrested five settlers.

Far-right Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has often defended Israelis accused of similar crimes, offered a rare condemnation of Sunday's violence. “Attacking security forces, security facilities, and Israeli soldiers who are our brothers, our protectors, is a red line, and must be dealt with in full severity. We are brothers,” he wrote on X.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid told Israel’s Army radio that the riots were carried out by “Jewish terrorists, gangs of criminals, who feel backed by the (governing) coalition.”

A hard-line supporter of Jewish settlements, Ben-Gvir was previously convicted in Israel of racist incitement and support for terrorist groups, and has called for the deportation of all Arab citizens from Israel. Though once widely shunned by Israel’s politicians, Ben-Gvir’s influence has grown and alongside a shift to the right in the country’s electorate has further emboldened violence from extremist settlers in the West Bank.

Footage on Israeli media showed dozens of young, religious men typically associated with “hilltop youth,” an extremist movement of Israeli settlers who occupy West Bank hilltops and have been accused of attacking Palestinians and their property. The footage showed security forces using stun grenades as dozens of settlers gathered around the military base just north of Ramallah. The Israeli military released photos of the infrastructure burned in the attack, which it said included “systems that help thwart terrorist attacks and maintain security.”

Defense Minister Israel Katz vowed Monday to “eradicate this violence from the root,” and implored the extremist settlers to remember that many of the security forces are exhausted reservists serving multiple rounds of duty.

Over the past two years of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, Palestinian residents in the West Bank have reported a major increase in Israeli checkpoints and delays across the territory. Israel, meanwhile, says threats from the West Bank against its citizens are on the rise.

Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, and Palestinians want all three territories for their future state. The West Bank is home to some 3 million Palestinians live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, and 500,000 Jewish settlers. The international community overwhelmingly considers settlements illegal.