TRIPOLI: Tripoli’s worst armed clashes in a year have killed 55 people and wounded 146, Libyan media reported Wednesday, as a truce took hold.
Fighting erupted on Monday night and raged through Tuesday between the influential 444 Brigade and the Al-Radaa, or Special Deterrence Force, two of the myriad of militias that have vied for power since the overthrow of longtime dictator Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.
Libya’s Al-Ahrar TV reported the new toll, citing Malek Mersit, spokesman for the Emergency Medical Center. Medics had previously reported 27 dead and 106 wounded over the two days of fighting in the capital.
In August last year, 32 people were killed and 159 wounded in Tripoli during battles between divided Libya’s two rival administrations that compete for power through shifting alliances with the militias on the ground.
Libya has seen more than a decade of stop-start conflict since the NATO-backed revolt that toppled Qaddafi.
A period of relative stability had led the United Nations to express hope for delayed elections to take place this year, and the latest fighting triggered international calls for calm.
The clashes were triggered by the detention of the head of the 444 Brigade, Col. Mahmud Hamza, by the rival Al-Radaa Force on Monday, an interior ministry official said.
Late Tuesday, the social council in the southeastern suburb of Soug El-Joumaa, a stronghold of the Al-Radaa force, announced that an agreement had been reached with Prime Minister Abdelhamid Dbeibah, head of the UN-recognized government based in the capital, for Hamza to be handed over to a “neutral party.”
In a televised announcement, the council said a cease-fire would follow the transfer of the force’s commander, and late on Tuesday the fighting abated.
Both armed groups are aligned with Dbeibah’s government.
A total of 234 families were evacuated from frontline areas in the capital’s southern suburbs, along with dozens of doctors and paramedics trapped by the fighting while caring for the wounded, the Emergency Medical Center said.
Overnight Tuesday-Wednesday, Dbeibah visited the southeastern suburb of Ain Zara, which saw some of the heaviest fighting on Tuesday, accompanied by Interior Minister Imed Trabelsi.
Dbeibah “saw for himself the severity of the damage” as he toured the densely populated neighborhood’s unlit streets, his government’s press office said on its Facebook page.
He gave instructions for a survey of the damage to be carried out so that residents could be compensated, it added.
The interior ministry put in place a security plan to deploy officers to battleground districts to oversee the truce announced between the two sides.
The Libyan capital’s only civilian airport, Mitiga, which lies in an area under Al-Radaa’s control, reopened to commercial flights on Wednesday, officials said. Flights had been diverted to Misrata about 180 kilometers (110 miles) to the east.
In May, the two armed groups had clashed for hours in Tripoli, also after the arrest of a 444 Brigade member.
The UN mission in Libya said it was “following with concern” the security deterioration in Tripoli and its impact on civilians.
Human Rights Watch Libya researcher Hanan Saleh expressed outrage that the capital’s armed groups continued to settle their differences with heavy weaponry in residential areas without being held accountable.
“Surely, Libyans at risk of such violent incidents deserve more? Nothing will change unless there are consequences,” she said.
Libya specialist Jalel Harchaoui said the latest fighting highlighted the failure of the international community to address the problem of the militias.
“However events unfold, the past three years have been wasted by diplomats, politicians, the security planners and peace building specialists. Tripoli is a territory even more dominated by the militias than before,” Harchaoui said.
The 444 Brigade is affiliated with Libya’s defense ministry and is reputed to be the North African country’s most disciplined. It controls the southern suburbs of Tripoli and other areas.
The Al-Radaa force, commanded by Abdel Rauf Karah, is a powerful ultra-conservative militia that acts as the capital’s police force and controls central and eastern Tripoli, Mitiga air base, the civilian airport and a prison.
Libya is split between Dbeibah’s UN-backed government in the west and another in the east backed by military strongman Khalifa Haftar.
Truce holds in Libya after clashes kill 55
https://arab.news/vw8h5
Truce holds in Libya after clashes kill 55
- Libya’s Al-Ahrar TV reported the new toll, citing Malek Mersit, spokesman for the Emergency Medical Center
- Libya has seen more than a decade of stop-start conflict since the NATO-backed revolt that toppled Qaddafi
44,330 Gazans killed in more than 13 months of war
- Medics said Israeli military strikes killed at least 17 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Thursday
GAZA CITY: The Health Ministry in Gaza said on Thursday that at least 44,330 people have been killed in more than 13 months of war between Israel and Palestinian militants.
The toll includes 48 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 104,933 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Medics said Israeli military strikes killed at least 17 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Thursday as forces stepped up bombardments on central areas and pushed tanks deeper in the north and south of the enclave.
Six people were killed in two separate airstrikes on a house and near the hospital of Kamal Adwan in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, while four others were killed when an Israeli strike hit a motorcycle in Khan Younis in the south.
In Nuseirat, one of the Gaza Strip’s eight historic refugee camps, Israeli planes carried out several airstrikes, destroying a multi-floor building and hitting roads outside mosques.
At least seven people were killed in some of those strikes, health officials said.
Medics said at least two people, a woman and a child, were killed in tank shelling that hit western areas of Nuseirat, while an air strike killed five others in a house nearby. In Rafah, near the border with Egypt, tanks pushed deeper into the northern-west area of the city, residents said.
Months of attempts to negotiate a ceasefire have yielded scant progress, and negotiations are now on hold.
Royal Jordanian, Ethiopian Airlines to resume flights to Lebanon, Gulf carriers delay decisions
- Both airlines announce service resumption in coming days, but most foreign airlines remain wary as they monitor stability of truce
- Lebanon’s ATTAL president says ‘7-8 companies expected to return in coming days’
LONDON: Royal Jordanian, and Ethiopian Airlines have announced the resumption of flights to Beirut following the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah that took effect on Wednesday.
However, most Gulf and European airlines are delaying any immediate return to Lebanese airspace as they monitor the stability of the truce.
Jordan’s flag carrier, Royal Jordanian, will restart flights to Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport on Sunday after halting operations in late August amid escalating hostilities. CEO Samer Majali confirmed on Thursday that services would resume following the ceasefire.
Ethiopian Airlines has also reopened bookings for flights to Beirut, with services scheduled to resume on Dec. 10.
But despite these developments, most international airlines remain cautious.
Fadi Al-Hassan, director of Beirut Airport, told LBCI that Arab and foreign carriers were expected to gradually resume operations in the coming weeks, especially as the holiday season approaches.
However, Jean Abboud, president of the Association of Travel and Tourist Agents in Lebanon, predicted a slower return.
Abboud said in a statement that he expects “the return of some companies within a few days, which do not exceed seven to eight companies out of about 60 companies,” adding that many carriers were eyeing early 2025 to resume operations.
Airline updates
- Emirates: Flights to and from Beirut remain canceled until Dec. 31.
- Etihad Airways, Saudia, Air Arabia, Oman Air, Qatar Airways: Suspensions extend until early January 2025.
- Lufthansa Group (including Eurowings): Flights to Beirut suspended until Feb. 28, 2025.
- Air France-KLM: Services to Beirut suspended until Jan. 5, 2025, and Tel Aviv until Dec. 31, 2024.
- Aegean Air: Flights to Beirut from Athens, London, and Milan are suspended until April 1, 2025.
At present, Middle East Airlines remains the sole carrier operating flights to and from Beirut, having maintained operations despite intense Israeli airstrikes near the airport.
The airline serves all major Gulf and European hubs, but flights are fully booked in the coming days as Lebanese expatriates rush to return home following the ceasefire announcement.
The upcoming Christmas season has also driven a surge in demand, offering a glimmer of hope for a country reeling from widespread destruction and an escalating economic crisis.
With the conflict having severely impacted Lebanon’s tourism sector, the holiday season could provide a much-needed lifeline for the struggling economy.
The resumption of additional services is expected to depend on whether the ceasefire holds and the overall security situation stabilizes.
UK signs deals with Iraq aimed at curbing irregular immigration
- “Organized criminals operate across borders, so law enforcement needs to operate across borders too,” Cooper said
- Pacts include a joint UK-Iraq “statement on border security” committing both countries to work more closely in tackling people smuggling and border security
LONDON: The UK government said Thursday it had struck a “world-first security agreement” and other cooperation deals with Iraq to target people-smuggling gangs and strengthen its border security.
Interior minister Yvette Cooper said the pacts sent “a clear signal to the criminal smuggling gangs that we are determined to work across the globe to go after them.”
They follow a visit this week by Cooper to Iraq and its autonomous Kurdistan region, when she met federal and regional government officials.
“Organized criminals operate across borders, so law enforcement needs to operate across borders too,” she said in a statement.
Cooper noted people-smuggling gangs’ operations “stretch back through Northern France, Germany, across Europe, to the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and beyond.”
“The increasingly global nature of organized immigration crime means that even countries that are thousands of miles apart must work more closely together,” she added.
The pacts include a joint UK-Iraq “statement on border security” committing both countries to work more closely in tackling people smuggling and border security.
The two countries signed another statement on migration to speed up the returns of people who have no right to be in the UK and help reintegration programs to support returnees.
As part of the agreements, London will also provide up to £300,000 ($380,000) for Iraqi law enforcement training in border security.
It will be focused on countering organized immigration crime and narcotics, and increasing the capacity and capability of Iraq’s border enforcement.
The UK has pledged another £200,000 to support projects in the Kurdistan region, “which will enhance capabilities concerning irregular migration and border security, including a new taskforce.”
Other measures within the agreements include a communications campaign “to counter the misinformation and myths that people-smugglers post online.”
Cooper’s interior ministry said collectively they were “the biggest operational package to tackle serious organized crime and people smuggling between the two countries ever.”
Some Lebanon hospitals look set to restart quickly after ceasefire, WHO says
- “Probably some of our hospitals will take some time,” Abdinasir Abubakar, WHO representative in Lebanon said
GENEVA: A World Health Organization official voiced optimism on Thursday that some of the health facilities in Lebanon shuttered during more than a year of conflict would soon be operational again, if the ceasefire holds.
“Probably some of our hospitals will take some time, but some hospitals probably will be able to restart very quickly,” Abdinasir Abubakar, WHO representative in Lebanon, told an online press conference after a damage assessment this week.
“So we are very hopeful,” he added, saying four hospitals in and around Beirut were among those that could restart quickly.
Lebanon says 2 hurt as Israeli troops fire on people returning south after truce with Hezbollah
- Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said two people were wounded by Israeli fire in Markaba, close to the border, without providing further details
- It said Israel fired artillery in three other locations near the border
BEIRUT: At least two people were wounded by Israeli fire in southern Lebanon on Thursday, according to state media. The Israeli military said it had fired at people trying to return to certain areas on the second day of a ceasefire with Hezbollah.
The agreement, brokered by the United States and France, includes an initial two-month ceasefire in which Hezbollah militants are to withdraw north of the Litani River and Israeli forces are to return to their side of the border. The buffer zone would be patrolled by Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said two people were wounded by Israeli fire in Markaba, close to the border, without providing further details. It said Israel fired artillery in three other locations near the border. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press reporter in northern Israel near the border heard Israeli drones buzzing overhead and the sound of artillery strikes from the Lebanese side.
The Israeli military said in a statement that “several suspects were identified arriving with vehicles to a number of areas in southern Lebanon, breaching the conditions of the ceasefire.” It said troops “opened fire toward them” and would “actively enforce violations of the ceasefire agreement.”
Israeli officials have said forces will be withdrawn gradually as it ensures that the agreement is being enforced. Israel has warned people not to return to areas where troops are deployed, and says it reserves the right to strike Hezbollah if it violates the terms of the truce.
A Lebanese military official said Lebanese troops would gradually deploy in the south as Israeli troops withdraw. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.
The ceasefire agreement announced late Tuesday ended 14 months of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that began a day after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of Gaza, when the Lebanese militant group began firing rockets, drones and missiles in solidarity.
Israel retaliated with airstrikes, and the conflict steadily intensified for nearly a year before boiling over into all-out war in mid-September. The war in Gaza is still raging with no end in sight.
More than 3,760 people were killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon during the conflict, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials. The fighting killed more than 70 people in Israel — over half of them civilians — as well as dozens of Israeli soldiers fighting in southern Lebanon.
Some 1.2 million people were displaced in Lebanon, and thousands began streaming back to their homes on Wednesday despite warnings from the Lebanese military and the Israeli army to stay out of certain areas. Some 50,000 people were displaced on the Israeli side, but few have returned and the communities near the northern border are still largely deserted.
In Menara, an Israeli community on the border with views into Lebanon, around three quarters of homes are damaged, some with collapsed roofs and burnt-out interiors. A few residents could be seen gathering their belongings on Thursday before leaving again.
