The children of Israelis being held hostage in Gaza made an emotional appeal for their immediate release on Thursday.
Friends Noam Sagi and Sharon Lifschitz’s parents were abducted when Hamas fighters stormed the Nir Oz kibbutz near the Gaza border.
In total, around 80 people from the community were abducted.
The pair, who are dual British and Israeli nationals, had not been contacted or offered assistance by either Israeli or British authorities since the kidnapping, Mr Sagi said at a press conference in London. "We have no information, we are working together in the dark," he said.
“The only hope I have now is almost like for humanity to do something for me to see my mother again and for my son to see his grandmother again."
Ms Lifschitz told how her parents, whom she is not naming out of fear for their safety, have fought for peace in the region all their lives.
The artist and academic, who also grew up on the kibbutz, said: “My mum was taken out, she was kind of disconnected from her oxygen in order to be loaded onto a motorbike or whatever it is, I don’t know.
“My father spent his life fighting for peace. I am his daughter. We are all his children.
“When we ask for peace, we ask to see the human within each of us.”
Meanwhile, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Thursday used a meeting with the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim, to call on Hamas to release hostages taken during its offensive.
A spokesman for Mr Scholz said the fate of the prisoners, who include several German citizens, was a focal point of the talks in Berlin. Mr Scholz “underlined that Hamas has full responsibility for the welfare of the hostages” and “demanded that the hostages be released as quickly as possible”.
Families of French citizens who were kidnapped by Hamas and brought to Gaza on Thursday asked for help from French President Emmanuel Macron.
“Macron, you have the power to bring back the disappeared. I want my sister back and I want her now,” Meitav Journo said at a press conference in Tel Aviv. She believes that her sister Karen was kidnapped on Saturday at a music festival in the desert near the Gaza-Israel border.
Ms Journo said she saw a three-second video of her sister, who had a broken foot, and two other girls being driven in a private ambulance. “Nobody is talking to us from the Israeli government or the IDF [Israeli army],” said Ms Journo.
Sitting next to her, Batsheva Yaalomi said that she wanted Mr Macron to provide her with information on her missing relatives. They include her husband and 12-year-old son. “My heart is broken,” said Ms Yaalomi, who managed to flee her kidnappers with two of her children, including an eight-month-old baby. “I don’t know where my son is. I wish that no mother in the world experiences this kind of nightmare.”
At the London press conference, surrounded by posters of the missing Israelis and the slogan "Bring them home", Mr Sagi said he should have been picking his mother up from London's Heathrow Airport on Thursday. She was due to visit him in the British capital to celebrate her 75th birthday.
"I shouldn't be sitting here," the 53-year-old psychotherapist, who grew up on the kibbutz and now lives in London.
“What keeps me going is I will do everything I can for them.”
He said Hamas militants targeted young children and the elderly.
“People who survived the holocaust found themselves facing another one," he added.
Mr Sagi said both he and Ms Lifschitz’s parents are “peace loving people who fought all their lives for coexistence and for good neighbouring relationships”.
Israel-Gaza war latest - in pictures
“If they will die for peace they will take it. If they will die for war that will be another travesty.”
His mother, Ada Sagi, the daughter of Holocaust survivors from Poland, was born in Israel in 1948. She suffers from severe allergies and recently had a hip replacement.
As a member of a kibbutz built on the ideals of equality and humanity, she learned Arabic and taught the language to others in southern Israel as a way to improve communication and build a better relationship with Palestinians living nearby.
"These people were marginalised in Israel for their beliefs. All their lives they fought for a better future for us," said Mr Sagi.
Ms Lifschitz recalled how her father had spent his retirement driving Gazans to hospital once a week, and how he'd brought a case to the Israeli high court in the 1980s, to help Arab Bedouins reclaim their land.
"We are two communities that live together," she said.
The pair recalled their childhood on the kibbutz, where children spent their time in each other's homes, and nobody locked their doors. "We never imagined that this was going to be how we reunite," he said.
It would be impossible for the remaining families of the Nir Oz kibbutz to return there, she said, due to the trauma that took place there.
“We now have to fight for those we can still save. The place is gone. The dead are dead. And somewhere in Gaza there are [kidnapped] children and mothers and this is our fight now.”
"We need people to get this sorted. We need these people to come back home," she added.
Israeli and Palestinian demonstrations across Europe - in pictures
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Section 375
Cast: Akshaye Khanna, Richa Chadha, Meera Chopra & Rahul Bhat
Director: Ajay Bahl
Producers: Kumar Mangat Pathak, Abhishek Pathak & SCIPL
Rating: 3.5/5
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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.”
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Company name: Play:Date
Launched: March 2017 on UAE Mother’s Day
Founder: Shamim Kassibawi
Based: Dubai with operations in the UAE and US
Sector: Tech
Size: 20 employees
Stage of funding: Seed
Investors: Three founders (two silent co-founders) and one venture capital fund
