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The World Health Organisation said it has full confidence in the death toll figures issues from Gaza's health authorities, after Israel questioned a change in the numbers.
Health officials in the enclave last week updated a breakdown of the total number of deaths from more than seven months of war since Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on October 7.
The UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) published the Palestinian figures, quoting Gaza's Health Ministry as the source. The agency added there was a new distinction in its reporting between the total deaths and "identified" fatalities.
On May 8, it reported that about 35,000 people had been killed in the enclave in total, with almost 25,000 of those listed as identified deaths. Among the identified toll, 20 per cent were women and 32 per cent were children. A further 8 per cent were listed as "elderly" without their gender being given.
The ministry had previously only provided an overall death toll and a death toll of women and children, without the breakdown of how many bodies had been identified. The change in reporting led Israel to allege the figures were inaccurate, because Palestinian authorities previously estimated that more than 70 per cent of those killed were women and children.
Under the new breakdown, the percentage of women and children among the identified casualties is significantly lower.
But the WHO said there was "nothing wrong" with the data on Tuesday and that many of the unidentified bodies under the rubble in Gaza were likely to be women and children.
“Nothing wrong with the data. The overall data [more than 35,000] are still the same,” WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said at a Geneva press briefing. “The fact we now have 25,000 identified people is a step forward."
He said that based on the data, about 60 per cent of victims were women and children, but many bodies buried beneath rubble were likely to fall into these categories. He added that it was “normal” for death tolls to change during conflicts, and that Israel revised down its figures from the Hamas-led attacks to 1,200 deaths.
“We're basically talking about 35,000 people who are dead, and really every life matters, doesn't it?” Liz Throssell, spokeswoman for the UN human rights office, said at the briefing. “And we know that many of those are women and children and there are thousands missing under the rubble."
Their comments came as at least 14 Palestinians were killed and dozens injured in an Israeli air strike on a house in Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza on Tuesday morning.
Israeli jets struck a three-storey house belonging to the Karaja family in the camp, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported. It quoted medical sources as saying children were among the dead.
Gaza's civil defence said its teams pulled eight bodies from the rubble and rescued several others, mostly women and children. Israel also carried out strikes west of Gaza city and in Beit Lahia, in the north-west of the enclave, Wafa said.
Israeli artillery also struck Jabalia camp, north of Gaza city.
The UN said nearly half a million Palestinians have been displaced in recent days by escalating Israeli military operations in the southern and northern parts of the enclave.
About 360,000 Palestinians were driven out of Rafah in southern Gaza in the past week, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said.
About 1.3 million people had taken shelter in Rafah before Israel began pushing into the city, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government says is the last Hamas stronghold in Gaza.
Israeli forces are also battling Hamas militants in northern Gaza, where the army launched major operations earlier in the war.
About 100,000 people have been displaced since the army ordered residents to leave on Saturday, before the start of a latest offensive in the area, UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said on Monday.
Meanwhile, Qatar said ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas have reached a stalemate following the ground offensive in Rafah. Over the past few weeks, “we have seen some momentum building, but unfortunately things didn’t move in the right direction,” Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said at the Qatar Economic Forum on Tuesday.
“Right now, we are in a status of almost a stalemate,” he added.
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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.”
Key recommendations
- Fewer criminals put behind bars and more to serve sentences in the community, with short sentences scrapped and many inmates released earlier.
- Greater use of curfews and exclusion zones to deliver tougher supervision than ever on criminals.
- Explore wider powers for judges to punish offenders by blocking them from attending football matches, banning them from driving or travelling abroad through an expansion of ‘ancillary orders’.
- More Intensive Supervision Courts to tackle the root causes of crime such as alcohol and drug abuse – forcing repeat offenders to take part in tough treatment programmes or face prison.
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