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TRIPOLI: Three suspects have been detained for allegedly storming the Libyan state oil firm’s headquarters in Tripoli, the country’s attorney general said on Friday, a day after its rival government in the east threatened to declare force majeure on oil fields and ports citing assaults on the firm.

The National Oil Corporation is based in Tripoli under the control of the internationally-recognized Government of National Unity. The parallel government in Benghazi in the east is not internationally recognized, but most oilfields in the major oil producing country are under the control of eastern Libyan military leader Khalifa Haftar.

The NOC has previously denied its corporation’s headquarters were stormed, calling it “completely false” and quoted its acting chief as calling it “nothing more than a limited personal dispute that occurred in the reception area.”

But the eastern-based government has threatened to also temporarily relocate the NOC’s headquarters to “safe cities” such as Ras Lanuf and Brega, both of which it controls.

“The public prosecution reviewed the evidence of the storming of the Corporation’s headquarters, inspected the scene, reviewed the video footage recorded at the time of the incident and heard the testimonies of those present,” the attorney general said in a statement.

The three suspects were handed over by the defense ministry, which was asked “to arrest the remaining contributors to the incident,” the attorney general said.

The national output of crude oil in the past 24 hours reached 1,389,055 barrels per day, the NOC said on Wednesday, reflecting normal levels.

Libya’s oil output has been disrupted repeatedly in the chaotic decade since 2014 when the country divided between two rival authorities in the east and west following the NATO-backed uprising that toppled Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.

JERUSALEM: Defense Minister Israel Katz vowed on Friday to build a “Jewish Israeli state” in the occupied West Bank, a day after the government announced the creation of 22 new settlements in the Palestinian territory.

Israeli settlements in the West Bank, seen as a major obstacle to lasting peace, are regularly condemned by the United Nations as illegal under international law, and Thursday’s announcement drew sharp foreign criticism.

“This is a decisive response to the terrorist organizations that are trying to harm and weaken our hold on this land — and it is also a clear message to (French President Emmanuel) Macron and his associates: they will recognize a Palestinian state on paper — but we will build the Jewish Israeli state here on the ground,” Katz was quoted as saying Friday in a statement from his office.

“The paper will be thrown into the trash bin of history, and the State of Israel will flourish and prosper.”

Katz was speaking during a visit to the Sa-Nur settlement outpost in the northern West Bank.

Sa-Nur was evacuated in 2005 as part of Israel’s disengagement from Gaza, promoted by then prime minister Ariel Sharon.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967.

During a visit to Singapore on Friday, French President Macron asserted that recognition of a Palestinian state, with some conditions, was “not only a moral duty, but a political necessity.”

An international conference meant to resurrect the idea of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is set to take place in June at the UN headquarters in New York.

A diplomat in Paris close to preparations for the conference said it should pave the way for more countries to recognize a Palestinian state.

Macron said in April that France could recognize a Palestinian state in June.

Following Israel’s announcement of the new settlements on Thursday, Britain called the move a “deliberate obstacle” to Palestinian statehood, while UN chief Antonio Guterres’s spokesman said it pushed efforts toward a two-state solution “in the wrong direction.”