Libya’s eastern-based parliament has ordered departure of the ambassadors of the countries that support the Israeli regime, which has brought the Palestinian territory of the Gaza Strip under a hugely-deadly war.
“We demand that the ambassadors of the states which support the Zionist entity in its crimes leave the territory [of Libya] immediately,” the parliament said in a statement on Wednesday.
The legislature also threatened to cut energy supplies to the countries in question.
“If the massacres committed by the Zionist enemy do not stop, we demand that the Libyan government suspend the export of oil and gas to the states that support it,” the statement added.
Israel launched the devastating war on October 7 after the Gaza Strip-based Palestinian resistance groups staged Operation al-Aqsa Storm, a surprise attack on the occupied territories, in response to the Israeli regime’s intensified crimes against the Palestinian people. The war has killed at least 6,546 Palestinians, including 2,704 children, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
The Libyan parliament also singled out the United States, the UK, France, and Italy for criticism over their support for the Israeli regime amid the war.
It said those states “support the Zionist entity in its crimes” in the Gaza Strip, while their leaders “lecture on human rights and the right of peoples to self-determination.”
Since 2015, Libya has been divided between the lawmakers, who are allied to military commander Khalifa Haftar and are based in the northeastern port city of Tobruk, and the internationally-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli.
Back in August, top Libyan politicians called for the ouster of the GNA that is run by Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh, after it was revealed that his foreign minister and her Israeli counterpart had held a secret meeting.
Dbeibah, however, vehemently rejected any form of normalization with Tel Aviv in his first public remarks after Tripoli received the massive backlash over the meeting.
