Libya Roadmap Committee Kicks off Efforts to Resolve Crisis

Libyans shop at a mall in Tripoli. (AFP)
Libyans shop at a mall in Tripoli. (AFP)
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Libya Roadmap Committee Kicks off Efforts to Resolve Crisis

Libyans shop at a mall in Tripoli. (AFP)
Libyans shop at a mall in Tripoli. (AFP)

Libya's parliament and High Council of State denied that their leaders had arranged to hold a meeting outside the country.

Meanwhile, a parliamentary committee has kicked off its work in drafting a new roadmap to end the country's crisis.

The committee met for a second time in the capital, Tripoli. It will be in contact with all Libyan political, military, security sides and others as it attempts to resolve the crisis.

It said it will first meet with the High Council of State and national authority tasked with drafting the constitution. It will also meet with the Presidential Council and political parties.

An aide to the parliament speaker denied reports that Aguila Saleh was scheduled to meet with head of the High Council of State Khalid al-Mishri in Morocco on Sunday.

He stressed that Saleh has not yet regained his position as speaker in order to hold talks with any official figure.

A spokesman for the High Council of State also denied that Mishri had traveled to Morocco to meet with Saleh.

Separately, head of the Government of National Unity (GNU), Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah met with Qatar's Ambassador to Libya, Khaled al-Dosari, in Tripoli.

The envoy stressed his country's keenness on developing ties with Libya and activating bilateral agreements.



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.