"There is no effort or desire to normalize relations with the occupying state [Israel],” Libyan Prime Minister Abdulhamid al-Dbeibeh told Asharq al-Awsat in response to whether normalization is in the cards for the two countries.
“This matter is not up for debate among Libyans, for whom the Palestinian cause represents a major part of their conscience,” he went on to say.
Libya has had no diplomatic relations with Israel since its independence in 1951, in part because former leader Col. Muammar Gaddafi, who ruled from 1969 to 2011, was vehemently pro-Palestine and known for his support for Palestinian terrorist groups (such as Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command).
While such involvement with terrorism has decreased since Gaddafi was assassinated, Libya’s recent years have been marked by political, economic, and ideological instability, including a civil war between 2014 and 2020. Even today, with the international recognition of Dbeibeh’s Government of National Unity in Tripoli, the country has significant internal unrest. The east of the country is de facto run by Khalifa Haftar, who has governed the region as a military dictatorship since 2017.
Talk of Libya-Israel relations is not exactly new, Lior Dabush, a strategic researcher specializing in Middle East affairs at MIND Israel and partner for business development at the Israel-UAE Scaleup Business Center, told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday. “Even during [the rule of] Gaddafi, there were some relations, even if they were kept quiet.”
Dabush said that while Israel has had some relations with Dbeibeh, the problem with Israel is that news is always “leaking.”
“When you are working with Arab countries, even if they have a desire for relations, it has to be kept secret,” Dabush told the Post. “You can only announce the results of discussions after it’s done.”
This rule was not followed in the case of a discussion that took place between then foreign minister Eli Cohen and then Libyan foreign minister Najla Mangoush in August 2023.
Cohen released a statement saying that the two had met in Rome to discuss the “great potential for the two countries” and described the meeting as the first diplomatic move between the two countries. Mass protests soon erupted in the streets of Libya. Dbeibeh suspended Mangoush the same day, and put the situation under investigation. Despite her telling Al Jazeera’s Atheer podcast that she had the approval and prior consent from Dbeibeh to meet Cohen, it was too late, and she was forced to flee to Turkey.
“Eli Cohen made a mistake; the reaction of Libya was very bad,” said Dabush.
There has been very little discussion of relations between the two countries since, especially given that the Israel-Hamas War broke out just three months later.
Libya-Israel relations came into the spotlight again last month when Axios reported that Mossad director David Barnea was in talks with Washington about the possibility of encouraging third-party countries to take in displaced Palestinians from Gaza. Libya was cited as an example, as were Indonesia and Ethiopia. An Israeli official then told CNN in August that South Sudan and Somaliland are also on the list. South Sudan and Somaliland have both rejected claims of any such initiative, while Indonesia said last week that it would temporarily take in 2,000 Palestinians from Gaza for treatment.
It seemed that Libya would follow in the footsteps of South Sudan and Somaliland. In the same interview with Asharq al-Awsat on Tuesday, Dbeibeh said, “claims that we accepted the crime of displacing Palestinians are false and stem from mistaken or fabricated journalistic leaks."
“What is happening in Gaza, the killing, starving of children, and depriving people of their basic rights, is a major humanitarian tragedy,” he added. “International powers must address it so that these people can live in peace on their land, not be displaced from it.”
However, on Thursday, a senior Libyan government official told Middle East Eye that Dbeibeh’s government has held talks with Israeli officials over the resettlement.
Speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the issue, Libyan, Arab, and European officials reportedly told MEE that National Security Adviser Ibrahim Dbeibah, a relative of the prime minister, was leading the talks. The report added that details were being kept secret because the pro-Palestinian beliefs of Libyans are so unwavering.
According to Dabush, who has friends in the country, “the people in Libya know there are talks between the two countries.”
Hope for future normalization
The Post asked Dabush whether discussions about resettling Gazans may be part of a wider move toward normalization.
“The young generation – even though there is an opposition because the Palestinian cause is close to their hearts – after years of wars, the first thing on their agenda, their first priority, is political stability, unemployment, and economic development,” she told the Post.
“They don’t want to see armies from other countries interfere in their situation. Even though they hate Israel due to the war in Gaza, they still have openness to think and examine this idea, if normalization would provide for the needs and interests of their country.”
From Israel's perspective, while Libya is not one of the main focuses for normalization, as is Saudi Arabia, there are three key reasons that normalization with Libya would be beneficial, Dabush explained.
One of these is security, given that Libya has a Mediterranean coast which can be used for smuggling.
“Iranians are using Libya in order to transfer weapons from Sudan, through Libya into the Mediterranean and then to Hezbollah and Hamas,” Dabush told the Post. If Israel had diplomatic relations with Libya, it could convince it to put more effort into securing its borders and ensure no weapons would be smuggled across the border with Sudan.
Then there is the economic concern. In 2018, Turkey and the then Libyan Government of National Accord signed a maritime agreement which established an exclusive economic zone in the Mediterranean Sea. This enabled them to claim rights to seabed resources, but also, as Dabush explained, put a stop to Israel, Greece, and Cyprus’s planned gas pipeline (the EastMed pipeline). The pipeline was designed to connect the gas fields in the Eastern Mediterranean on a route that would run between Israel, Cyprus, and Greece, and on to Europe. Turkey expressed fierce opposition to the plan, and signed the maritime agreement with Libya that effectively bisected the route’s planned area.
Normalized relations with Libya could help in the process of finding a solution, which Israel has an incentive for, given the economic benefits of the pipeline should it come to fruition.
The third reason, Dabush said, is Turkey. “Israel sees Turkey as a threat and the next challenge in the region.” She explained that at MIND, they see the four main powers in the Middle East to be Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Iran is a known threat to Israel, whereas Saudi Arabia “doesn’t have any military desires, more economic,” said Dabush. Turkey, however, especially under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, “is hostile to Israel."
“So if Israel has the opportunity to make Erdogan or Turkey less powerful, then that is of interest to Israel.”
Nevertheless, the political situation of Dbeibeh is “very sensitive, so normalization isn’t possible right now,” Dabush said.
“After the war with Hamas, if Israel could do with Libya what it did with Sudan in 2021 [the year of the Israel-Sudan normalization agreement], I think they would agree to normalize,” she said. “If the US and Israel would show Libya that they would help with its economy and security, I think it would say yes.”
But wouldn’t the country’s commitment to the Palestinian cause be too strong for them to normalize with Israel? Dabush thinks not. “I don’t think it’s different from any other Muslim country. Libyans care about Palestinians, but the next generation are more pragmatic. Libyans are tired of war. They want one day to promote cooperation.”
With huge resources (oil reserves in Libya are the largest in Africa and the ninth largest in the world), it could be expected that Libya would be like other oil-rich countries such as Azerbaijan and Brunei, which have flourished. Yet, according to the World Bank in 2025, both the public and private sectors are underdeveloped, and despite increasing oil production, “years of conflicts, divisions, and corrupt regimes have resulted in insufficient public investment and infrastructure maintenance. Libya has poor healthcare, disruptions in the provision of safe drinking water, and an unreliable electricity supply, the World Bank added.
Some of the country was ravaged by wildfires in July, but had no water to extinguish them, according to Dabush.
Normalization with Libya could also affect Libyan Jews, of which Dabush is one. In the 1940s, about 40,000 Jews lived in Libya. Over 30,000 had left to Israel by the end 1951. There were also two pogroms against Jews in Tripoli, one in 1945 and one in 1967. Following the latter, 6,000 Jews were airlifted to Rome in one month. By the time of Gaddafi’s rule, only a couple of hundred Jews remained in Libya. Gaddafi arrested all Jewish men, confiscated their property, and declared the Day of Revenge to mark the expulsion of Jews from Libya in 1970. The last Jew left Libya in 2003.
Dabush believes that while Libyans care about Palestinians, “they don’t hate Jewish people.” She hopes one day that she, a Jewish Israeli woman, will be able to walk the streets of Tripoli and visit the places where her family once lived.