The head of the Libyan National Unity Government, Abd al-Hamid al-Dabaiba, suspended his foreign minister, Najla al-Mangoush from work, after the announcement on Sunday of a meeting between her and her Israeli counterpart in Rome last week .

Dabaiba's government said in a statement, on Sunday evening, that it had decided to suspend Mangoush from "working as a precautionary measure" provided that she will be "referred to investigation" before a committee headed by the Minister of Justice.

The Libyan Foreign Ministry described what happened in Rome as an "accidental meeting", but the news of the meeting led to popular protests in several Libyan cities. The political dispute erupted on Sunday, after the announcement of the Israeli Foreign Ministry in a statement, that the foreign ministers of Israel and Libya met last week in the first diplomatic initiative of its kind between the two countries.

The statement pointed that Foreign Minister Eli Cohen and his Libyan counterpart in the Tripoli-based government, Najla al-Mangoush, spoke during a meeting in Rome hosted by Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Taiani.

However, the Libyan Foreign Ministry confirmed on Sunday that Al-Mangoush refused to hold any meetings with any party representing the Israeli entity, and said that what happened in Rome was "an unofficial and unprepared casual meeting during a meeting with the Italian Foreign Minister, and it did not include any discussions, agreements or consultations." And it added that the foreign minister affirmed "Libya's constants towards the Palestinian cause in a clear and unambiguous manner."

The Libyan Foreign Ministry accused Israel of giving what happened the nature of the meeting or talks.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry statement quoted Cohen as saying that the two sides discussed "the importance of preserving the heritage of Libyan Jews, including the restoration of synagogues and Jewish cemeteries in the country." There was no immediate confirmation from Rome of the meeting.

News of the meeting sparked protests in some Libyan cities and also prompted the issuance of a letter from the country's Presidential Council asking for clarification and called on the unity government to clarify the truth about Mangoush's meeting with the foreign minister of the "Israeli entity," according to a correspondence confirmed by a spokeswoman for the Presidential Council. The letter said that this development "does not reflect the foreign policy of the Libyan state and does not represent the Libyan national constants, and is considered a violation of Libyan laws that criminalize normalization with the Zionist entity." And it demanded that the government, in the event that the meeting was proven, "take the most severe penalties in accordance with the laws and procedures in force in Libya."

Protests erupted in the streets of Tripoli and its suburbs on Sunday evening, rejecting normalization with Israel. The protests spread to other cities, where young men blocked roads and burned tires, waving the Palestinian flag.

Like a number of other North African countries, Libya has a rich Jewish heritage. But during the decades of rule of the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who was a staunch supporter of the Palestinian cause, thousands of Jews were expelled from Libya and many synagogues were destroyed.

Libya has been witnessing chaos since the fall of the Muammar Gaddafi regime in 2011. The country is currently ruled by two competing governments, one in the west headed by al-Dabaiba and the other in the east headed by Osama Hammad, commissioned by parliament and supported by Khalifa Haftar.