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Hezbollah and Israel engaged in a new exchange of cross-border fire on Wednesday morning, with the Iran-backed Lebanese armed group claiming to have caused multiple Israeli casualties.
Hezbollah said it fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli position in response to the death of three of its members when Israel bombarded southern Lebanon on Monday, and warned that it would be “decisive in its response to the Israeli attacks targeting our country and the security of our people”.
The attack took place near the Israeli town of Arab Al Aramshe, opposite the Lebanese village of Dhayra, the Israeli military said. It responded by shelling the areas of Marwahein, Dhayra and Yarin in southern Lebanon.
The Israeli military did not report any casualties in the Hezbollah attack. Three people were injured in Dhayra, according to Moussa Shaman, the civil defence's head of disaster response for the area.
Ambulances rushing to the southern city of Sour were the only vehicles on the otherwise empty road to Dhayra. In the final villages and towns - the ones affected by the shelling - they were absent of residents and people, save for the men in camoflaged black clothes and sunglasses, who were likely associated with Hezbollah.
In Dhayra, multiple houses were badly damaged. Lebanon's civil defence personnel went from house to house, checking that no one was trapped or injured, shouting: "Is anyone here, is anyone here?"
Ali Mustafa Sweid, an off-duty soldier whose body and clothes were completely blackened by smoke after his house was bombarded, said his sister and brother were both injured.
After he put out a kitchen fire caused by the strike on his home, he tended to his injured siblings' legs until the ambulance came.
“The roof caved over our heads and the stairs fell. I don’t understand why they're hitting civilian's homes,” he said angrily.
“We didn’t expect them to hit civilians,” he told The National. “We didn’t do anything.”
He commented bitterly that Hezbollah’s retaliation had at least been on a military post. But Israel had hit civilian homes, breaking the unspoken rules of tit-for-tat military engagement that have been established in recent days.
At one point the Lebanese Army arrived on the area, urging people to clear the area as Israeli planes hovered overhead.
Unifil, the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, denied reports that it had been told by Hezbollah to evacuate the area before the shelling started.
"In a conflict situation, rumours can run rampant. Unifil continues to be present and operational," spokesman Andrea Tenenti said.
"Our essential work continues and Unifil's chief Major General General Lazaro is in constant contact with authorities on both sides of the Blue Line urging restraint."
There have been four consecutive days of attacks across the border between Lebanon and Israel , which are technically at war, after Hamas, the Palestinian militant group governing the Gaza Strip, launched a co-ordinated attack in southern Israel on Saturday that killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
On Tuesday evening, bombs dropped by Israel lit up the skies over southern Lebanon as forces retaliated against Hezbollah targets.
Lebanon and Israel last fought a full-scale war in 2006, but the new outbreak of violence has raised fears about their border becoming a second front in the war between Israel and Hezbollah-allied Hamas.
Israel and the US have warned Hezbollah against getting further involved.
The Israeli army is "prepared for any scenario", spokesman Daniel Hagari told reporters.
"Hezbollah is observing what Israel is doing in Gaza, it sees the volume of the destruction. Hezbollah sees this and understands," he said.
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
