Morocco: Solution to Libyan Crisis Only Possible Through Int’l Support, Elections

Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita and Special Envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations to Libya Abdoulaye Bathily hold a press conference in Rabat. (Moroccan Foreign Ministry)
Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita and Special Envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations to Libya Abdoulaye Bathily hold a press conference in Rabat. (Moroccan Foreign Ministry)
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Morocco: Solution to Libyan Crisis Only Possible Through Int’l Support, Elections

Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita and Special Envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations to Libya Abdoulaye Bathily hold a press conference in Rabat. (Moroccan Foreign Ministry)
Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita and Special Envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations to Libya Abdoulaye Bathily hold a press conference in Rabat. (Moroccan Foreign Ministry)

Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita said Monday that resolving the Libyan crisis cannot be achieved without international support through the United Nations.

Bourita held talks in Rabat with Special Envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations to Libya, Abdoulaye Bathily.

Following the talks, he told a press conference that holding presidential and parliamentary elections was essential to resolving the crisis in Libya, while acknowledging that obstacles are still hindering the solution.

Morocco and the UN have been in contact over the developments in Libya.

Morocco has hosted several meetings that have brought together Libyan rivals. The meetings had paved the way for reaching an agreement on the need to hold general elections.

“Morocco supports Libya's unity and sovereignty and backs a solution that guarantees them,” Bourita added

He rejected foreign meddling in Libyan affairs, stressing that there can be no military solution to the crisis.

For his part, Bathily said that Morocco has expressed the same concerns as the UN Secretary-General regarding Libya. “We must contribute to restoring security and stability in Libya,” he affirmed.

The envoy added that Libya enjoys enormous resources that allow it to prosper.

“The Libyans are working hard, at all levels, in order to reach a solution to the crisis,” he said.

Meanwhile, the UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Libya - chaired by Mohammad Auajjar - urged the authorities to “take decisive steps to provide justice and redress to the vast number of victims suffering from longstanding violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.”

“The families of these victims have waited far too long for justice,” said Auajjar.

“Libyan authorities owe it to them to share information about their loved ones, to meet them and give them answers. Silence is unacceptable.”

“We, too, have asked repeatedly for answers to the status of multiple investigations concerning serious human rights violations, but to date, there has been no satisfactory response,” Auajjar added.

During the January 23-26 mission to Tripoli, the FFM’s experts met with victims and victims’ representatives, who provided testimony related to extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, human trafficking, internal displacement, the existence of mass graves and morgues containing corpses that families do not have access to.

The FFM comprises rights expert Chaloka Beyani who said that “arbitrary detention in Libya has become pervasive as a tool of political repression and control, which explains why thousands of persons are deprived of their liberty, often in poor conditions, without due process or access to justice.”

The UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Libya was established by the Human Rights Council in June 2020, to investigate alleged abuses of international human rights law and international humanitarian law committed in Libya since 2016.



Israeli Troops Battle Palestinian Fighters in Gaza City of Khan Younis

 Smoke rises following Israeli strikes during an Israeli military operation, amid Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
Smoke rises following Israeli strikes during an Israeli military operation, amid Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
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Israeli Troops Battle Palestinian Fighters in Gaza City of Khan Younis

 Smoke rises following Israeli strikes during an Israeli military operation, amid Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
Smoke rises following Israeli strikes during an Israeli military operation, amid Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)

Israeli troops battled Palestinian fighters in Khan Younis in southern Gaza and destroyed tunnels and other infrastructure, as they sought to suppress small militant units that have continued to hit troops with mortar fire, the military said on Friday.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said troops had killed around 100 Palestinian fighters since Israeli troops began their latest operation in Khan Younis on Monday, which continued as pressure mounted for a deal to halt the fighting.

It said seven small units that had been firing mortars at the troops were hit in an air strike, while further south, in Rafah, four fighters were also killed in air strikes.

The Islamic Jihad armed wing said it fired rockets toward the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon and other Israeli towns near Gaza. No casualties were reported, the Israeli ambulance service said.

The continued fighting, more than nine months since the start of Israel's invasion of Gaza following the Oct. 7 attack, underlined the difficulty the IDF has had in eliminating fighters who have reverted to a form of guerrilla warfare in the ruins of the coastal strip.

A Telegram channel operated by the armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the two main militant groups in Gaza, said fighters had been waging fierce battles with Israeli troops east of Khan Younis with machine guns, mortars and anti-tank weapons.

Medics said at least six Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes in eastern Khan Younis.

US PRESSURE

US President Joe Biden, and Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic Party nominee for president, both urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to a proposed ceasefire deal as soon as possible.

However there has been no clear sign of movement in talks to end the fighting and bring home some 115 Israeli and foreign hostages still being held in Gaza. Public statements from Israel and Hamas appear to indicate that serious differences remain between the two sides.

Local residents contacted by messenger app, said Israeli tanks had pushed into three towns to the east of Khan Younis, Bani Suhaila, Al-Zanna and Al-Karara and blew up several houses in some residential districts.

The military said air force jets hit around 45 targets, including tunnels and two launch pads from which rockets were fired into Beersheba in southern Israel.

Even while the fighting continued around Khan Younis and Rafah in the south, in the northern part of the enclave, Israeli tanks pushed into the Tel Al-Hawa suburb west of Gaza city, residents said.

A Hamas Telegram channel said fighters targeted an Israeli tank in Tal Al-Hawa and shot an Israeli soldier.

Medics said two Palestinians were also killed in an air strike in western Gaza city.

More than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed in the fighting in Gaza, according to local health authorities, who do not distinguish between fighters and non-combatants.

Israeli officials estimate that some 14,000 fighters from armed groups including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, have been killed or taken prisoner, out of a force they estimated to number more than 25,000 at the start of the war.