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Israel is pressing ahead with plans to create and arm local militias in the Gaza Strip to hold postwar sway over the coastal territory and rival its archenemy Hamas, The National has learnt.
Sources briefed on the process told The National that Israel also wanted the militias to oversee the distribution of humanitarian assistance to prevent Hamas fighters and loyalists from receiving them.
Most importantly in the long term, it wants the militias to take up law enforcement duties in the tiny but densely populated enclave after the war ends, replacing or augmenting the existing police force, according to the sources.
“The scheme is partially designed to push Gaza into civil strife, with Hamas and militiamen fighting it out,” said one of the sources. “It’s a repeat of the rivalries between Palestinian factions, which has weakened the Palestinians and denied them speaking with one voice.”
Israel has already carved up the Gaza Strip into security zones, sources say, as a prelude to the assignment of security duties to the proposed militias in each of them.
They said Israel was looking to criminal groups that had, among other things, run smuggling rings in Gaza for the nucleus of the proposed militias.
These include groups who masterminded and ran smuggling through a network of tunnels that ran under the border with Egypt.
Authorities in Egypt destroyed most of these tunnels in recent years as its security forces fought an insurgency by militants in the north-east region of the Sinai Peninsula near the border with Gaza.
The creation of militias to run Gaza’s day-to-day affairs, including matters of internal security, could spare Israel direct involvement in the enclave. The Israeli government didn't respond to The National's request for comment on the plans.
It also allows Israel to focus on securing its border with the territory to prevent a repeat of Hamas’s attack on southern Israel on October 7, when it killed about 1,200 people and took about 240 hostages back to Gaza.
The attack drew a devastating response from Israel, whose bombardment of Gaza killed more than 32,400 Palestinians, displaced most of its 2.3 million residents and created a grave humanitarian crisis.
The Israeli plan faces significant challenges given the considerable support Hamas continues to wield among Gazans and its iron-fist rule over the territory since 2007.
Hamas is known to have routinely put Palestinians suspected of spying or contacting Israel’s security agencies on secret overnight trials that mostly issued a guilty verdict. Executions are also carried out away from the public eye.
Tribal sources in Gaza told The National that Israel approached the largest tribes to work with the country on the security of the enclave during and after the war, but the tribes rejected the proposals.
Residents of northern Gaza have created what they call “popular committees” or “tribal committees” to help secure aid convoys. “We are ensuring the delivery of aid to warehouses,” a member of a tribal committee told The National.
Most committee members are not affiliated with factions and each area “has a special committee formed in it now, and they communicate with each other through their members”, he said.
"The committees were established to facilitate the arrival of aid to the people and were formed with the knowledge of Israel, international organisations, and in partnership with the security forces affiliated with Hamas in Gaza," said Hassan Ziad, a committee member.
The Israeli plan, meanwhile, reportedly drawn up by its Shin Bet internal security service, was never officially announced. Earlier this month, a group representing Gaza's tribes and clans said they “are not an alternative to any Palestinian political system”.
Gaza's tribal system is a crucial part of the enclave's social fabric and provided the enclave’s residents with an alternative to Israeli courts, police and other authorities during Israel's occupation of the territory from 1967 to 2005.
Israel’s plan to create militias in Gaza also appears to be a substitute for “day-after” scenarios for the governance and security of Gaza that have been put forward by its main ally and backer the US and mostly rejected by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Mr Netanyahu has repeatedly stated his resolve to dismantle Hamas’s governance and military capabilities but is also opposed to a return by the Palestinian Authority to Gaza, from which Fatah, the dominant faction within the PA, was expelled by Hamas after a brief civil war in 2007.
He has also has rejected suggestions that Israeli troops should make a full withdrawal from Gaza, saying Israel will have an indefinite overall security role there. He has also spoken about relying on local Gaza “administrations” to run the enclave, but without saying where they could come from or who they would report to.
The creation of local militias beholden to Israel and doing Israel’s bidding is not without precedent.
Following its 1978 invasion of Lebanon, Israel turned a mainly Christian splinter group of the Lebanese military into a militia called the South Lebanon Army to help its troops police a border enclave in southern Lebanon after it pushed Palestinians guerrillas out of the area.
Israel unilaterally withdrew from the enclave in 2000.
The National Archives, Abu Dhabi
Founded over 50 years ago, the National Archives collects valuable historical material relating to the UAE, and is the oldest and richest archive relating to the Arabian Gulf.
Much of the material can be viewed on line at the Arabian Gulf Digital Archive - https://www.agda.ae/en
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Faisal Al Ketbi (Open weight and 94kg)
Talib Al Kirbi (69kg)
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Zayed Al Kaabi (94kg)
Khalfan Belhol (85kg)
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Yahia Mansour Al Hammadi (Open and 94kg)
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Obaid Al Nuaimi (56kg)
Bashayer Al Matrooshi (62kg women)
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Nigel Farage told Reform's annual conference that the party will proscribe the Muslim Brotherhood if he becomes Prime Minister.
"We will stop dangerous organisations with links to terrorism operating in our country," he said. "Quite why we've been so gutless about this – both Labour and Conservative – I don't know.
“All across the Middle East, countries have banned and proscribed the Muslim Brotherhood as a dangerous organisation. We will do the very same.”
It is 10 years since a ground-breaking report into the Muslim Brotherhood by Sir John Jenkins.
Among the former diplomat's findings was an assessment that “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society” has “never been institutionally disowned” by the movement.
The prime minister at the time, David Cameron, who commissioned the report, said membership or association with the Muslim Brotherhood was a "possible indicator of extremism" but it would not be banned.
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.”
