Hamas must be eliminated, Marco Rubio says on Jerusalem visit

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US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said the Hamas militant group in control of Gaza "must be eliminated" and cannot be allowed to continue as either a government or military force.

On his maiden trip to the Middle East since his appointment to the Trump administration, Mr Rubio met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, who said the two nations had a "common strategy" for Gaza's future after 15 months of war, recently brought to a pause under a fragile ceasefire agreement which began on January 19.

The meeting came only weeks after Mr Trump floated his plan to permanently displace the 2.3 million Palestinians living in Gaza and turn the enclave into the "Riviera of the Middle East", a plan supported by Mr Netanyahu.

"We discussed Trump's bold vision for Gaza's future and will work to ensure that vision becomes a reality," Mr Netanyahu said after the meeting. "I want to assure everyone who's now listening to us, President Trump and I are working in full co-operation and co-ordination between us."

Arab and world leaders have condemned any action which removes the Palestinian people from their homeland. Egypt and Jordan, which Mr Trump said should take in Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, issued strong statements against the idea and insisted the only route to peace is a Palestinian state.

Mr Rubio said he believed Arab states were "working in good faith" but insisted Hamas must have no future role in the enclave.

The visit – after which Mr Rubio is expected to head to the UAE and Saudi Arabia – came after a testing week for the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, during which the group threatened to delay a planned hostage-for-prisoner swap, citing repeated Israeli violations of the truce agreement.

But on Saturday, three civilian captives were swapped for 369 Palestinian detainees, mostly Gazans jailed during the war, but also some serving life sentences over attacks on Israelis. Talks are due to begin soon on the second phase of the ceasefire.

The war broke out on October 7, 2023 with a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, which killed more than 1,200 people, with about 250 being taken hostage into Gaza. Seventy Israelis remain in the strip, about half of whom the Israeli military says are dead. The resulting aerial bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza have displaced almost the entire population and killed at least 48,270 people, the majority of them civilians, Gaza's Health Ministry.

Mr Netanyahu, the subject of an arrest warrant for war crimes by the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands, visited Washington this month. On Saturday night his country took delivery of a batch of US-made bombs, after the previous Biden administration blocked a shipment of heavy 900kg ordnance.

The pair also put up a united front on Iran, with Mr Netanyahu saying their nations stand "shoulder to shoulder" against its aggression in the Middle East. Iran has attacked Israel directly twice since the start of the Gaza conflict, with barrages of drones and missiles. Israel has attacked Iran in retaliation for those attacks, which at the time threatened to spill over into an all-out regional war.

"There can never be a nuclear Iran, a nuclear Iran that could then hold itself immune from pressure and from action," Mr Rubio said. ". That can never happen."

Iran's proxies, among them Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthi group in Yemen, have also attacked Israel. "Behind every terrorist group, behind every act of violence, behind every destabilising activity, behind everything that threatens peace and stability for the millions of people that call this region home is Iran," Mr Rubio said.

In Lebanon, where the Iran-linked Hezbollah has been significantly diminished by its own year-long war with Israel that was halted by a ceasefire in November 2024, Mr Rubio said the US and Israel expected the Lebanese state to work towards disarming the militant group.

"In the case of Lebanon, our goals are aligned in the same. A strong Lebanese state that can take on and disarm Hezbollah," Mr Rubio said in a joint statement alongside Mr Netanyahu in Jerusalem.

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.”

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