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Israel's 10-day military operation in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin has been an “earthquake” to Palestinians and rebuilding will take months, a senior official said on Friday. The army appeared to have withdrawn from three refugee camps in the occupied West Bank by Friday morning after a military operation that lasted more than a week and left a trail of destruction and dozens dead.
At least 39 Palestinians, including eight children and two elderly people, have been killed and around 150 others injured since the start of the Israeli operation on August 28, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Jenin’s mayor, Nidal Obeid, called the raid an “earthquake” in comments to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.
Israeli bulldozers destroyed more than 20km of the city’s road network, he said to the agency. Clearing the rubble will take only days, but repairs to the water and sewage networks damaged or destroyed by the Israeli army will take months, Mr Obeid said.
“What happened in Jenin comes within the policy of collective punishment of the Palestinians, and the extent of the destruction indicates that the occupation aims to deport the population as part of a declared policy”, he said. Troops had pulled out of the Tulkarem camp by Friday morning and had left Al Faraa earlier, but in a statement the Israeli military suggested that the operation wasn't yet over.
“Israeli security forces are continuing to act in order to achieve the objectives of the counterterrorism operation,” the military said in a statement. Israel's operations in the West Bank were aiming to target militants in the refugee camps in an attempt to curb recent attacks against Israeli civilians, it said.
It said such attacks have become more sophisticated and deadly since Israel launched its campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas's attack on Israel nearly 11 months ago. Jenin’s governor, Kamal Abu Al Rub, said the damage to infrastructure was very severe. “We had numerous invasions in the past, but this invasion is the most destructive,” he said.
He said ambulances came under fire during the assault, with one doctor wounded. The economy in the camp, where unemployment already ran at 21 per cent, has been further wrecked, he said. It comes as two cities in the occupied West Bank held funerals on Friday after the lifting of an Israeli army siege, the Wafa news agency reported.
Mohammad Kanaan, 15, was buried after Friday prayers after he was killed on Tuesday by Israeli snipers. The Israeli army is still holding the bodies of two men from the same camp. In Jenin, at least 10 people were buried following a 10-day siege. Eight were killed in the refugee camp and two in the city.
Palestinians are able to leave their homes
Palestinians were able to leave their homes and inspect the wreckage left by Israeli forces after the assault, which left many people imprisoned in their homes without basic supplies. The scenes they were met with were horrific. Twisted rebar protruded from the concrete of collapsed buildings and the walls still standing were pockmarked with bullets and shrapnel.
Palestinians used bulldozers of their own to begin clearing the rubble on Friday after Israeli armoured vehicles left, according to AFP. Since the Gaza war began on October 7, Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 661 Palestinians in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
The specs
Engine: 8.0-litre, quad-turbo 16-cylinder
Transmission: 7-speed auto
0-100kmh 2.3 seconds
0-200kmh 5.5 seconds
0-300kmh 11.6 seconds
Power: 1500hp
Torque: 1600Nm
Price: Dh13,400,000
On sale: now
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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.”
Museum of the Future in numbers
- 78 metres is the height of the museum
- 30,000 square metres is its total area
- 17,000 square metres is the length of the stainless steel facade
- 14 kilometres is the length of LED lights used on the facade
- 1,024 individual pieces make up the exterior
- 7 floors in all, with one for administrative offices
- 2,400 diagonally intersecting steel members frame the torus shape
- 100 species of trees and plants dot the gardens
- Dh145 is the price of a ticket
Know your cyber adversaries
Cryptojacking: Compromises a device or network to mine cryptocurrencies without an organisation's knowledge.
Distributed denial-of-service: Floods systems, servers or networks with information, effectively blocking them.
Man-in-the-middle attack: Intercepts two-way communication to obtain information, spy on participants or alter the outcome.
Malware: Installs itself in a network when a user clicks on a compromised link or email attachment.
Phishing: Aims to secure personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers.
Ransomware: Encrypts user data, denying access and demands a payment to decrypt it.
Spyware: Collects information without the user's knowledge, which is then passed on to bad actors.
Trojans: Create a backdoor into systems, which becomes a point of entry for an attack.
Viruses: Infect applications in a system and replicate themselves as they go, just like their biological counterparts.
Worms: Send copies of themselves to other users or contacts. They don't attack the system, but they overload it.
Zero-day exploit: Exploits a vulnerability in software before a fix is found.
THE SPECS
Engine: 3.5-litre supercharged V6
Power: 416hp at 7,000rpm
Torque: 410Nm at 3,500rpm
Transmission: 6-speed manual
Fuel consumption: 10.2 l/100km
Price: Dh375,000
On sale: now
Where can I submit a sample?
Volunteers can now submit DNA samples at a number of centres across Abu Dhabi. The programme is open to all ages.
Collection centres in Abu Dhabi include:
- Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (ADNEC)
- Biogenix Labs in Masdar City
- Al Towayya in Al Ain
- NMC Royal Hospital in Khalifa City
- Bareen International Hospital
- NMC Specialty Hospital, Al Ain
- NMC Royal Medical Centre - Abu Dhabi
- NMC Royal Women’s Hospital.
Emergency
Director: Kangana Ranaut
Stars: Kangana Ranaut, Anupam Kher, Shreyas Talpade, Milind Soman, Mahima Chaudhry
Rating: 2/5
