Dbeibeh Accuses Local Parties of Seeking New War in Libya

 Libya’s PM Abdulhamid Dbeibehtouring Tajoura city (government media office)
Libya’s PM Abdulhamid Dbeibehtouring Tajoura city (government media office)
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Dbeibeh Accuses Local Parties of Seeking New War in Libya

 Libya’s PM Abdulhamid Dbeibehtouring Tajoura city (government media office)
Libya’s PM Abdulhamid Dbeibehtouring Tajoura city (government media office)

Prime Minister of Libya’s Government of National Unity (GNU) Abdulhamid Dbeibeh accused local parties of seeking to reignite war by disrupting public services and electricity.

Several Libyan areas suffered sudden power cut on Friday, prompting Dbeibeh to inspect the General Electricity Company.

The PM stressed that his government will spare no effort in providing electric power, facilitating financial procedures and concluding new contracts.

He urged citizens to protect the electric power grid and ordered the Interior Minister to open a probe into the matter in all affected areas.

He further called for connecting the power grids in eastern and western Libya, noting that this could only be implemented by opening the coastal road between Sirte and Misrata cities.

The General Electricity Company had announced a complete power outage for two consecutive days in the eastern region and in most of the western region areas due to an explosion.

The company later said that 90 percent of the power plants had been restored.

In a visit to Tajoura city in Tripoli, Dbeibeh stressed that those who “ignite war, cause power cuts, create problems in the queues outside gas stations and prevent us from communicating with people across Libya are the enemies of the Libyan people.”

He warned of whom he described as “war merchants,” stressing that many have amassed their fortune from this war.

Dbeibeh said his foreign tours are aimed at restoring Libya’s unity and sovereignty and expelling mercenaries.

Some sources interpreted his comments as an escalation in his silent dispute with Marshall Khalifa Haftar in eastern Libya.

“We couldn’t access Sirte Airport, which belongs to Libya and is on Libyan soil, because of the foreign forces present there,” Dbeibeh said.

He added that the forces stationed in the area asked them to enter Sirte by road, “but the government refused.”

Notably, Dbeibeh postponed a visit to the country’s east that had been planned for April 26 to demonstrate his government’s progress in ending years of division between warring factions.



UNRWA: Huge Mounds of Rotting Trash Pile up around Gaza Camps

12 May 2024, Palestinian Territories, Deir al-Balah: Tents for displaced people are crowded west of Deir al-Balah city in the central Gaza Strip after thousands of Palestinians fled Rafah after the Israeli army announced the start of a military operation there. Photo: Saher Alghorra/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
12 May 2024, Palestinian Territories, Deir al-Balah: Tents for displaced people are crowded west of Deir al-Balah city in the central Gaza Strip after thousands of Palestinians fled Rafah after the Israeli army announced the start of a military operation there. Photo: Saher Alghorra/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
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UNRWA: Huge Mounds of Rotting Trash Pile up around Gaza Camps

12 May 2024, Palestinian Territories, Deir al-Balah: Tents for displaced people are crowded west of Deir al-Balah city in the central Gaza Strip after thousands of Palestinians fled Rafah after the Israeli army announced the start of a military operation there. Photo: Saher Alghorra/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
12 May 2024, Palestinian Territories, Deir al-Balah: Tents for displaced people are crowded west of Deir al-Balah city in the central Gaza Strip after thousands of Palestinians fled Rafah after the Israeli army announced the start of a military operation there. Photo: Saher Alghorra/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa

Mounds of trash rotting in the heat are piling up close to where displaced people are sheltering in Gaza, a UN official said on Friday, raising fears about the further spread of disease.

Hundreds of thousands of Gazans who had fled to southern Gaza earlier in the more than 8-month conflict have been uprooted again since Israel expanded its military operations against Hamas to the southern city of Rafah in early May.

Louise Wateridge, an aid worker with United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), said that a pile of waste weighing an estimated 100,000 tonnes was building up near people's tents in central Gaza, Reuters reported.

"It's among the population and it's building up without anywhere to go. It just keeps getting worse. And with the temperatures rising, it's really adding misery to the living conditions here," she told journalists via video link from Gaza.

Israel has refused repeated requests to allow UNRWA to empty the main landfill sites, she said, meaning temporary ones are emerging, she added. Even if permission is granted, Wateridge said UNRWA's humanitarian missions such as trash collection have all but halted due to Israeli refusals to allow fuel imports.

Israel's COGAT, a branch of the military tasked with coordinating aid deliveries into Palestinian territories, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Israel, which launched its Gaza military operation after deadly Hamas attacks on southern Israel on Oct. 7, says it has expanded efforts to facilitate aid flows into Gaza and blames aid agencies for distribution problems inside the enclave. It controls fuel shipments into Gaza and has long maintained that there is a risk they are diverted to Hamas.

The World Health Organization's Tarik Jašarević said the trash, along with the rising heat, a lack of clean drinking water and sanitation services, was adding to disease risks.

"It can lead to a number of communicable diseases appearing," he said, mentioning that around 470,000 cases of diarrhea have been reported since the start of the war.

Wateridge, who arrived back in Gaza on Thursday after a four-week absence, said the situation had deteriorated significantly. She described the living conditions as "unbearable" with people sweltering under plastic sheets and cowering in bombed out buildings.