Scattered pine trees and olive groves interrupt barren hills just west of the city of Ramallah. In the past decade, rich Palestinians have been building holiday homes in the area, enhanced by the view of Tel Aviv and the Mediterranean in the distance.
Many villagers, however, have been living a story of blood, sweat and tears since the onset of the Gaza war in October.
A poster of Suleiman Malasa, shot dead by Israeli troops that month, covers a "dead-end" road sign at the start of the street on which he lived.
The man, 20, was in a car with several friends when an Israeli patrol fired on the vehicle, apparently because it had come too close, according to residents of Deir Ibzi. Malasa was the only passenger hit.
“On the grounds of our beloved village, he was elevated to martyrdom,” a caption under the poster reads. His brother, Qassem, spent months in Israeli detention for protesting against the killing.
It was one of numerous Israeli incursions into the occupied West Bank that have killed hundreds of Palestinians, in tandem with the war in Gaza. The raids have focused on refugee camps and other armed areas to the north of Ramallah. At least 22 Palestinians have been killed there since Wednesday.
The Israeli military has said its operations mainly pursued militants linked to Iran-backed Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as well as members of smaller grass-roots movements that rose to prominence as a land grab and other measures of harassment of Palestinians intensified. Such initiative have increased under governments dominated by hardline Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for most of the past 15 years.
The unabated violence has prompted repeated warnings by Jordan that the West Bank could ignite at any time, a scenario the kingdom fears could result in another stream of Palestinian refugees into its territory.
Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi on Sunday said Israel's "current bloody aggression against the West Bank is part of its escalation scheme, driven by racist ideology". He dismissed Israel's rationale for the incursions – protecting the country from militant attacks – as "lies".
In private meetings with western emissaries, King Abdullah II of Jordan has suggested a proposed international peace-keeping force in Gaza should also be sent to the West Bank, said one diplomat who met the king last month.
The diplomat said a West Bank deployment for such a force was unworkable because Israel would reject it. But the Palestinian Authority is working on a plan for a robust deployment of Palestinian security forces in Jenin, the current primary target for Israel in the West Bank, a Palestinian official told The National.
Even if Palestinian security forces can bring Jenin and other West Bank areas under control, Israel must end its elevated use of violence, sieges and other repressive measures across the West Bank or face wider radicalisation, he said. “Israel is turning the West Bank into another Gaza but without using mass bombardment,” the official added.
In the Ramallah suburb of Beitounya, a crafts and services centre, Israeli forces killed at least two men and arrested dozens in raids over the past nine months.
Mohamaad Khatib, the brother of one of those two killed, said his sibling, Fahim, was among a crowd that scuffled with Israeli forces. “They started firing live ammunition without warning,” he said.
A rural road through olive groves and leading further west, to the West Bank city of Qalqilya, was blocked by Israeli forces as a form of punishment against the local population after an Israeli patrol came under attack.
“We were not expecting a good season anyway,” Mr Khatib said, adding that unseasonal rain fell at the end of April, while the trees were flowering.
The olive picking season begins in October, a month that will mark one year since the start of the Gaza war.
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.”
COMPANY PROFILE
Company name: BorrowMe (BorrowMe.com)
Date started: August 2021
Founder: Nour Sabri
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: E-commerce / Marketplace
Size: Two employees
Funding stage: Seed investment
Initial investment: $200,000
Investors: Amr Manaa (director, PwC Middle East)
if you go
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The info
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Who are the Sacklers?
The Sackler family is a transatlantic dynasty that owns Purdue Pharma, which manufactures and markets OxyContin, one of the drugs at the centre of America's opioids crisis. The family is well known for their generous philanthropy towards the world's top cultural institutions, including Guggenheim Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, Tate in Britain, Yale University and the Serpentine Gallery, to name a few. Two branches of the family control Purdue Pharma.
Isaac Sackler and Sophie Greenberg were Jewish immigrants who arrived in New York before the First World War. They had three sons. The first, Arthur, died before OxyContin was invented. The second, Mortimer, who died aged 93 in 2010, was a former chief executive of Purdue Pharma. The third, Raymond, died aged 97 in 2017 and was also a former chief executive of Purdue Pharma.
It was Arthur, a psychiatrist and pharmaceutical marketeer, who started the family business dynasty. He and his brothers bought a small company called Purdue Frederick; among their first products were laxatives and prescription earwax remover.
Arthur's branch of the family has not been involved in Purdue for many years and his daughter, Elizabeth, has spoken out against it, saying the company's role in America's drugs crisis is "morally abhorrent".
The lawsuits that were brought by the attorneys general of New York and Massachussetts named eight Sacklers. This includes Kathe, Mortimer, Richard, Jonathan and Ilene Sackler Lefcourt, who are all the children of either Mortimer or Raymond. Then there's Theresa Sackler, who is Mortimer senior's widow; Beverly, Raymond's widow; and David Sackler, Raymond's grandson.
Members of the Sackler family are rarely seen in public.
