Bathily Tasked with Ensuring Security for Libya's Elections

 UN Special Representative for Libya Abdoulaye Bathily - (UNSMIL)
UN Special Representative for Libya Abdoulaye Bathily - (UNSMIL)
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Bathily Tasked with Ensuring Security for Libya's Elections

 UN Special Representative for Libya Abdoulaye Bathily - (UNSMIL)
UN Special Representative for Libya Abdoulaye Bathily - (UNSMIL)

UN Special Representative for Libya Abdoulaye Bathily has made several "unprecedented" security steps in preparation for holding Libya's elections, amid speculations by some politicians over the sufficiency of the measures he took so far.

Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat, a number of military personnel and researchers indicated that Bathily could succeed in achieving his goal, however, they pointed to possible obstacles and tensions.

In this regard, Former Libyan Defense Minister Muhammad Al-Barghathi said Bathily succeed in bringing together all active military forces who are technically capable of guaranteeing safe elections anytime, saying the UN envoy tackled his mission with “intelligence and courage that his predecessors lacked."

Al-Barghathi also said he understands doubts that leaders of armed factions in the western region wouldn’t commit to the elections because it jeopardizes their security control, however, he said the compromise "wasn't and won't be for free.”

"Most likely, the leaders of those factions imposed their conditions during the unannounced security meetings that preceded their recent meeting in Tripoli," he noted.

For his part, Head of Libya's Renewal Party Suleiman al-Bayoudi called for expanding the scope of participation in the security meetings to include all military and security forces in the country.

Al-Bayoudi warned Bathily in a Facebook post about the repercussions of disregarding the isolated military forces.

Also, Ahmed Aliba, a researcher at the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, highlighted several factors, at the international and local levels, that would enable Bathily to provide the minimum-security environment required to hold the elections.

Aliba told Asharq Al-Awsat that the international forces, with Washington in the lead, have changed their stances by increasing coordination with Libyan National Army (LNA) commander Khalifa Haftar, which reflects mutual interests between both sides.

This was demonstrated in the participation of the army delegation in all security meetings that were held in Libya and abroad.

On the local level, Aliba said that the Libyans are fed up with the political stalemate that spanned for months now, which Bathily could use to press the parliament and Libya's High Council of State to pass the elections laws as soon as possible.

He added that the indirect agreements between Haftar and the head of the interim Libyan unity government, Abdulhamid Dbeibeh, forecast the possibility of overcoming any obstacles or threats that could hinder holding the elections.



Israel’s Military Admits to Shooting at Ambulances in Gaza

 Palestinians buy clothes in a shop next to a destroyed apartment building in preparation for Eid al-Fitr celebrations at Al-Rimal neighborhood in the center of Gaza City Friday March 28, 2025.(AP)
Palestinians buy clothes in a shop next to a destroyed apartment building in preparation for Eid al-Fitr celebrations at Al-Rimal neighborhood in the center of Gaza City Friday March 28, 2025.(AP)
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Israel’s Military Admits to Shooting at Ambulances in Gaza

 Palestinians buy clothes in a shop next to a destroyed apartment building in preparation for Eid al-Fitr celebrations at Al-Rimal neighborhood in the center of Gaza City Friday March 28, 2025.(AP)
Palestinians buy clothes in a shop next to a destroyed apartment building in preparation for Eid al-Fitr celebrations at Al-Rimal neighborhood in the center of Gaza City Friday March 28, 2025.(AP)

Israel’s military admitted Saturday it had fired on ambulances in the Gaza Strip after identifying them as “suspicious vehicles,” with Hamas condemning it as a “war crime” that killed at least one person.

The incident took place last Sunday in the Tal al-Sultan neighborhood in the southern city of Rafah, close to the Egyptian border.

Israeli troops launched an offensive there on March 20, two days after the army resumed aerial bombardments of Gaza following an almost two-month-long truce.

Israeli troops had “opened fire toward Hamas vehicles and eliminated several Hamas terrorists,” the military said in a statement to AFP.

“A few minutes afterward, additional vehicles advanced suspiciously toward the troops... The troops responded by firing toward the suspicious vehicles, eliminating a number of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists.”

The military did not say if there was fire coming from the vehicles.

It added that “after an initial inquiry, it was determined that some of the suspicious vehicles... were ambulances and fire trucks,” and condemned “the repeated use” by “terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip of ambulances for terrorist purposes.”

The day after the incident, Gaza’s Civil Defense agency said in a statement that it had not heard from a team of six rescuers from Tal al-Sultan who had been urgently dispatched to respond to deaths and injuries.

On Friday, it reported finding the body of the team leader and the rescue vehicles—an ambulance and a firefighting vehicle—and said a vehicle from the Palestine Red Crescent Society was also “reduced to a pile of scrap metal.”

Basem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, accused Israel of carrying out “a deliberate and brutal massacre against Civil Defense and Palestinian Red Crescent teams in the city of Rafah.”

“The targeted killing of rescue workers—who are protected under international humanitarian law—constitutes a flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions and a war crime,” he said.

Tom Fletcher, head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said that since March 18, “Israeli airstrikes in densely populated areas have killed hundreds of children and other civilians.”

“Patients killed in their hospital beds. Ambulances shot at. First responders killed,” he said in a statement.

“If the basic principles of humanitarian law still count, the international community must act while it can to uphold them.”