Mohamed Menfi, President of the Libyan Presidency Council, arrived in Beijing on Tuesday noon to attend the 2024 Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), which is set to start on Wednesday.
Menfi's plane landed in the Chinese capital at 12:13 local time.
Located in northern Africa, Libya borders the Mediterranean to the north and has a coastline stretching over 1,900 kilometers.
Libya joined the FOCAC in 2000 when the forum was launched. It is also a member of the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum (CASCF). In July 2018, China and Libya signed a Memorandum of Understanding on jointly building the Belt and Road during the eighth ministerial meeting of the CASCF held in Beijing.
The 2024 FOCAC summit will be held in Beijing from Wednesday to Friday under the theme "Joining Hands to Advance Modernization and Build a High-Level China-Africa Community with a Shared Future."
President Xi Jinping will deliver a keynote speech at the summit's opening ceremony on Thursday.
Libya's Presidential Council president arrives in Beijing
Libya's Presidential Council president arrives in Beijing
The Palestinian death toll from ongoing Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip has topped 50,000, Gaza-based health authorities said in a statement on Sunday.
In the past 24 hours, 41 bodies and 61 wounded people were brought to hospitals across Gaza, bringing the total death toll to 50,021, with 113,274 injured since fighting erupted in early October 2023, the statement said.
Since a new wave of Israeli airstrikes began on March 18, at least 673 people have been killed and 1,233 wounded, the health authorities said.
Also on Sunday, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) warned that Israel's three-week blockade of aid to Gaza is accelerating a hunger crisis.
"No food, no medicines, no water, no fuel. A siege more stringent than during the initial phase of the war," the agency posted on social media platform X.
It emphasized that Gaza's population relies on imports for survival, with children increasingly facing starvation and disease as aid remains blocked.
Israel halted all supply entries to Gaza on March 2, citing security concerns.
Salah al-Bardawil, a senior Hamas leader and member of its political bureau, was killed Sunday along with his wife in an Israeli airstrike that targeted his tent inside a camp for displaced persons west of Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian media reports.
Palestinian death toll in Gaza surpasses 50,000 as Israel continues military operation
