Fort Elena — also called Fortezza Margherita or Sebha Castle — was built by the Italian colonial administration in the 1930s on the site of a much older Ottoman structure. The Italians used it as a military garrison and administrative centre; the Libyan government retained it after independence in 1951. It is a substantial rectangular fort with watchtowers at the corners, characteristic of Italian colonial construction across North Africa.
The fort is a useful orientation point for the town — it sits on elevated ground and the surrounding streets give a sense of how the older parts of Sebha were organised before the postwar sprawl. Visitors may not always be able to enter, but the exterior is worth seeing. The area around the fort has some of the town's older buildings and a small traditional market.