Angry protesters took to the streets on Monday evening and in front of one of the houses of the Government of National Unity’s Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah,on Al-Shatt Road in the capital, Tripoli, following statements by dismissed Foreign Minister Najla Al-Mangoush about her meeting with former Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen in Rome in August 2023.
Other protests against Dbeibah were seen in the city of Misrata, demanding his removal, after Al-Mangoush linked her meeting with the Israeli minister to the government’s approval and arrangement.
Activists also reported on social media that protests had taken place in various areas of the country, during which protesters expressed their rejection of what they called “the collusion of the government and its prime minister” in the meeting of the former foreign minister with the former foreign minister of Israel, and demanded the removal of the prime minister and an investigation into these accusations.
In an interview broadcast by Al Jazeera’s 360 platform, Al-Mangoush said that the meeting came after “contact and coordination between the Israeli side and the Government of National Unity,” explaining: “I was not a party to arranging the meeting’s agenda. The government arranged it and I delivered the message.”
Al-Mangoush confirmed that the meeting was a secret for security and strategic purposes related to Libya’s resources, considering that the Government of National Unity had abstained due to lack of wisdom and inability to address the crisis after the meeting was leaked, and denied that the meeting had anything to do with normalization.
She revealed that her meeting with the Israeli side was limited to a specific framework and that she was frank about the Palestinian Cause, saying: “I informed Cohen about the Libyan people’s point of view and our feelings in support of the Palestinians and rejection of the Israeli government’s policies.”
