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To escape impending captivity or perhaps even death, a fearful Israeli father grabbed his three-year-old daughter in his arms before jumping out of a car being driven by Hamas militants towards Gaza, his relatives have said.
His brother Or Gat has shared the family’s story of survival but also of anguish – their elderly mother was shot dead at point-blank range, while his sister and sister-in-law remain among the hostages still held by Hamas.
Or Gat was the only one of his family not present at his parents’ home in Kibbutz Be’eri when Hamas militants smashed through the Gaza border on October 7 and killed more than 1,400 Israelis in the south.
“My family’s story is horrible but there are many families who have lost everyone," Mr Gat told The National from Tel Aviv.
His mother Kinneret, 69, was killed and his sister Carmel, 39, and sister-in-law Yarden Roman Gat, 35, were kidnapped.
His brother Alon Gat, 37, and daughter Geffen, 3, were also abducted but managed to escape.
Making a break
Mr Gat has pieced together the story by talking to his father and brother and from family text messages.
He messaged his family at 6.30am for four hours before Hamas fighters closed in on their home.
His 69-year-old father was in the bathroom when gunmen stormed into the house.
His mother gestured for her husband to stay hidden, as he watched his family being led out by armed militants.
Mr Gat said his father survived the militants spraying bullets and torching their home.
The rest of the family was pushed into a car and driven towards Gaza.
It was then that Alon and his wife Yarden attempted to make a break for it.
“When they started driving to the Gaza Strip, Alon – with Geffen in his arms – and Yarden jumped out of the car,” Mr Gat said.
“Alon escaped with bullets whistling by his ears. He is a tour guide and familiar with the field so he stayed camouflaged in the bushes for 15 hours.”
But Yarden, a German-Israeli citizen, was recaptured by Hamas fighters and listed as kidnapped with their sister Carmel.
Alon continued hiding, calming his terrified daughter before slowly making his way home.
He needed to be careful as they could have been discovered by Hamas or targeted by Israeli forces on the lookout for the militants.
The brothers have since returned to the spot where the couple jumped out of the car in a desperate attempt to trace information about the hostages.
“The last time Alon saw Yarden, she was hiding behind a tree,” Mr Gat said.
“She hid to avoid the bullets but could not run as fast as Alon.
“We did a lot of searching. The only indication we have that she was taken again was that we didn’t find any blood, we didn’t find a body.”
Ocean of pain
Their mother Kinneret was separated from the young family when they were pulled out of their home.
With her hands tied, she was filmed walking alongside other elderly residents being led by Hamas fighters through the kibbutz before they were shot.
Watching the footage released by Hamas has had a significant effect on the family.
“You can see her and the others walking in the first video and then on the ground lifeless in the second,” Mr Gat said.
More than 100 bodies were found in Kibbutz Be’eri, according to Israeli military officials.
“It’s like an ocean of pain,” Mr Gat said of losing some of his loved ones.
“We have a mission to take care of the living, who seem OK but are in trauma.
“There is sadness, sorrow, pain and anger.”
'Bring back our girls'
Mr Gat cannot stop crying as he relives the attacks.
“I want to bring back our girls,” he said.
“They are caught on the wrong side of the fence right now.
“We need to bring them back, all of them, this is not just my family’s story.”
Despite the pain caused to his family by the Hamas attack, Mr Gat holds on to the lessons of peace that his mother, a teacher, lived by.
“Put down weapons and make peace,” Mr Gat said was the only path.
In retaliation to the Hamas attacks, Israeli has cut off water, electricity and fuel to Gaza. It has bombarded the small city with one of the heaviest and sustained spells of air strikes in the history of the conflict, which have killed more than 5,000 Palestinians, mainly women and children.
“Even right now when Carmel and Yarden are held by Hamas and my mother has been murdered by Hamas – peace is the only solution," Mr Gat said.
“We don’t want to hurt innocent civilians in Gaza – my mother would have told me that."
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Libya's Gold
UN Panel of Experts found regime secretly sold a fifth of the country's gold reserves.
The panel’s 2017 report followed a trail to West Africa where large sums of cash and gold were hidden by Abdullah Al Senussi, Qaddafi’s former intelligence chief, in 2011.
Cases filled with cash that was said to amount to $560m in 100 dollar notes, that was kept by a group of Libyans in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
A second stash was said to have been held in Accra, Ghana, inside boxes at the local offices of an international human rights organisation based in France.
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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.”
