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Negotiators met on Monday in Doha to try to bridge the remaining gaps between Hamas and Israel over the terms of a possible Gaza truce and a prisoner and hostage swap, sources familiar with the process told The National.
The negotiations are the latest bid in more than three months of talks between mediators from the US, Egypt and Qatar to broker a ceasefire in the five-month-old war.
The latest efforts follow the negotiators' failure to reach a truce before Ramadan, which began on March 11, despite considerable pressure from the US.
The sources said negotiators from Egypt, Qatar and Israel held lengthy discussions on Monday. The Egyptians and Qataris were due later to meet Hamas officials, led by political leader Ismail Haniyeh and Khalil Al Hayah, the deputy and confidante of Hamas’s powerful Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar.
The Mossad chief David Barnea and his counterpart at the domestic Shin Bet security agency, Ronen Bar, are already in Qatar. The CIA director William Burns and his Egyptian counterpart Abbas Kamel will arrive later on Monday, according to the sources.
No time frame was given for the duration of the talks, but the sources said they could last several days because the mediators wanted Hamas leaders in Gaza, who have been difficult to reach, to respond to questions and new proposals while the negotiating parties are still in Doha. In previous rounds of negotiations, Hamas's Gaza leadership has responded after in-person talks had concluded.
The Gaza-based Mr Sinwar and the senior commanders of the group's military wing, with whom he is close, are seen as having the final call on decisions. Mr Haniyeh and other leaders like Khaled Mashaal have lived in exile for years, losing much of the influence they once had within the group.
On the table in Doha are Hamas’s conditions for a ceasefire, which Israel has already dismissed as “unrealistic”, but is yet to issue a formal response to.
Mr Netanyahu has said that annihilating Hamas was the war’s main objective and that Israel wanted to retain an unqualified security role in Gaza after the war ends.
A proposed six-week truce will be discussed, during which Hamas wants to see the redeployment of Israeli forces outside urban centres and their departure from Gaza’s two main roads, Salaheddin and Al Rasheed, according to the sources.
That, Hamas argues, will facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance across Gaza and ensure the safety of the hundreds of thousands of residents displaced by the war as they gradually make their way home to central and northern Gaza.
Hamas also wants guarantees that a permanent ceasefire will be in place when the initial six-week truce ends.
Hamas says it is prepared to release 40 to 45 of the estimated 100 hostages it still holds during the initial six-week truce. The released will be women, ailing, elderly or children. In return, Israel must release at least 1,000 Palestinians incarcerated in its prisons.
It also wants humanitarian aid to freely flow into Gaza during the initial truce, including temporary homes and tent camps for Palestinians whose homes are destroyed or structurally damaged.
During the second phase of the deal, Hamas wants Israel to completely pull out of Gaza, a demand unlikely to be met by Mr Netanyahu’s government.
Hamas promises to release the female Israeli soldiers – believed to number five – that it is holding hostage in the second phase. In return, it wants Israel to release 50 Palestinian prisoners for each one of them. Each 50 should include 30 who are serving life or long jail terms in Israeli prisons, it says.
The third phase of the deal is open-ended. It will include a swap of active-duty Israeli soldiers in Hamas’s custody for Palestinian prisoners, whose number will be determined later.
The deal also involves Hamas allowing the examination of the remains of an estimated 30 hostages who died while in Hamas’s captivity by independent forensic experts to determine their identities, before they are handed to Israel, also in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
The meetings in Qatar are taking on added urgency because of the rapidly worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza, where famine is expected between now and May in the enclave’s north.
The number of people facing “catastrophic hunger” in Gaza has risen to 1.1 million – about half the territory’s population of 2.3 million – according to a UN-backed report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification published on Monday.
The threat of a potentially disastrous ground operation by Israel in the southern city of Rafah is also lending added urgency to the talks. Mr Netanyahu reaffirmed on Sunday that Israeli forces intend to invade Rafah, which is located on the Egyptian border and is now home to some 1.5 million displaced Palestinians.
The Gaza war was triggered by a deadly rampage on October 7 by Hamas in southern Israel that left around 1,200 people dead and around 240 more kidnapped and taken to Gaza as hostages. The attack triggered a relentless military campaign by Israel that has to date killed more than 31,700 Palestinians, wounded more than twice as many and displaced most of the enclave’s residents.
During a week-long truce in late November, Hamas released more than 100 hostages, leaving it with about 130. At least 30 of these are believed to have died in captivity as a result of Israel’s bombardment.
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At a glance
Fixtures All matches start at 9.30am, at ICC Academy, Dubai. Admission is free
Thursday UAE v Ireland; Saturday UAE v Ireland; Jan 21 UAE v Scotland; Jan 23 UAE v Scotland
UAE squad Rohan Mustafa (c), Ashfaq Ahmed, Ghulam Shabber, Rameez Shahzad, Mohammed Boota, Mohammed Usman, Adnan Mufti, Shaiman Anwar, Ahmed Raza, Imran Haider, Qadeer Ahmed, Mohammed Naveed, Amir Hayat, Zahoor Khan
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.”
What can victims do?
Always use only regulated platforms
Stop all transactions and communication on suspicion
Save all evidence (screenshots, chat logs, transaction IDs)
Report to local authorities
Warn others to prevent further harm
Courtesy: Crystal Intelligence
On Instagram: @WithHopeUAE
Although social media can be harmful to our mental health, paradoxically, one of the antidotes comes with the many social-media accounts devoted to normalising mental-health struggles. With Hope UAE is one of them.
The group, which has about 3,600 followers, was started three years ago by five Emirati women to address the stigma surrounding the subject. Via Instagram, the group recently began featuring personal accounts by Emiratis. The posts are written under the hashtag #mymindmatters, along with a black-and-white photo of the subject holding the group’s signature red balloon.
“Depression is ugly,” says one of the users, Amani. “It paints everything around me and everything in me.”
Saaed, meanwhile, faces the daunting task of caring for four family members with psychological disorders. “I’ve had no support and no resources here to help me,” he says. “It has been, and still is, a one-man battle against the demons of fractured minds.”
In addition to With Hope UAE’s frank social-media presence, the group holds talks and workshops in Dubai. “Change takes time,” Reem Al Ali, vice chairman and a founding member of With Hope UAE, told The National earlier this year. “It won’t happen overnight, and it will take persistent and passionate people to bring about this change.”
