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European, US Officials Reiterate Importance of Holding Libyan Elections on Time

The High National Elections Commission discusses arrangements for launching electoral awareness campaigns (the HNEC)
The High National Elections Commission discusses arrangements for launching electoral awareness campaigns (the HNEC)
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European, US Officials Reiterate Importance of Holding Libyan Elections on Time

The High National Elections Commission discusses arrangements for launching electoral awareness campaigns (the HNEC)
The High National Elections Commission discusses arrangements for launching electoral awareness campaigns (the HNEC)

Officials from France, Germany, Italy, and the US have reiterated the importance of implementing the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum (LPDF) Roadmap, which would lead to holding the Libyan elections scheduled in December.

UN Special Envoy to Libya Jan Kubisch, accompanied by Assistant Secretary-General/UNSMIL Coordinator Raisedon Zenenga, held a meeting on Tuesday with Special Envoys, Ambassadors and other senior officials representing France, UK, US, Germany and Italy in the P3+2 format.

The aim of the meeting was to advance the implementation of the LPDF Roadmap leading up to the holding of national elections on December 24, and the full implementation of the Ceasefire Agreement.

An official from the Independent High Electoral Commission told Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper there is a race against time to ensure that the elections are held on time.

The meeting’s participants reiterated the importance of committing to the date of elections on 24 December and of expediting the withdrawal of mercenaries and foreign fighters and forces from Libya, in accordance with the Ceasefire Agreement and relevant UN Security Council Resolutions, including the recently adopted UNSCRs 2570 (2021) and 2571 (2021).

“The meeting also discussed possible next steps to implement the LPDF Roadmap and the UNSC Resolutions,” UNSMIL said in a statement on its website.

It further added that “within the same context and objectives and in the light of the political and security situation in Libya and the region, the Special Envoy held telephone conversations with high -level representatives of the GIS of Egypt, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Mikhail Bogdanov and NATO Deputy Secretary-General Mircea Geoană.”

In an attempt to resolve the obstacles hindering holding the elections on time, Minister of Finance Khaled Al-Mabrouk met with Chairman of the High National Elections Commission (HNEC) Imad Al-Sayeh.

Mabrouk stressed the importance of the role entrusted to the commission, underscoring the need to give it full support.

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Arab World

US Tracking Nearly 500 Incidents of Civilian Harm During Israel’s Gaza War

People pray by the bodies of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip October 30, 2024. (Reuters)
People pray by the bodies of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip October 30, 2024. (Reuters)
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US Tracking Nearly 500 Incidents of Civilian Harm During Israel’s Gaza War

People pray by the bodies of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip October 30, 2024. (Reuters)
People pray by the bodies of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip October 30, 2024. (Reuters)

US State Department officials have identified nearly 500 potential incidents of civilian harm during Israel's military operations in Gaza involving US-furnished weapons, but have not taken further action on any of them, three sources, including a US official familiar with the matter, said this week.

The incidents - some of which might have violated international humanitarian law, according to the sources - have been recorded since Oct. 7, 2023, when the Gaza war started. They are being collected by the State Department's Civilian Harm Incident Response Guidance, a formal mechanism for tracking and assessing any reported misuse of US-origin weapons.

State Department officials gathered the incidents from public and non-public sources, including media reporting, civil society groups and foreign government contacts.

The mechanism, which was established in August 2023 to be applied to all countries that receive US arms, has three stages: incident analysis, policy impact assessment, and coordinated department action, according to a December internal State Department cable reviewed by Reuters.

None of the Gaza cases had yet reached the third stage of action, said a former US official familiar with the matter. Options, the former official said, could range from working with Israel's government to help mitigate harm, to suspending existing arms export licenses or withholding future approvals.

The Washington Post first reported the nearly 500 incidents on Wednesday.

The Biden administration has said it is reasonable to assess that Israel has breached international law in the conflict, but assessing individual incidents was "very difficult work," State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters on Wednesday.

"We are conducting those investigations, and we are conducting them thoroughly, and we are conducting them aggressively, but we want to get to the right answer, and it's important that we not jump to a pre-ordained result, and that we not skip any of the work," Miller said, adding that Washington consistently raises concerns over civilian harm with Israel.

The administration of President Joe Biden has long said it is yet to definitively assess an incident in which Israel has violated international humanitarian law during its operation in Gaza.

John Ramming Chappell, advocacy and legal adviser at the Center for Civilians in Conflict, said the Biden administration "has consistently deferred to Israeli authorities and declined to do its own investigations."

"The US government hasn't done nearly enough to investigate how the Israeli military uses weapons made in the United States and paid for by US taxpayers," he said.

The civilian harm process does not only look at potential violations of international law but at any incident where civilians are killed or injured and where US arms are implicated, and looks at whether this could have been avoided or reduced, said one US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

A review of an incident can lead to a recommendation that a unit needs more training or different equipment, as well as more severe consequences, the official said.

Israel's military conduct has come under increasing scrutiny as its forces have killed more than 43,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the enclave's health authorities.

The latest episode of bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on Oct. 7, 2023, when Palestinian Hamas fighters attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and abducting 250 others, according to Israeli tallies.