Eight more Palestinians have died as a result of starvation and malnutrition in the 24 hours since the UN declared a famine in Gaza, the official Wafa news agency reported on Saturday.
This brings the total number of famine-related deaths in the territory to 281, including 114 children, Wafa said, citing medical sources.
The UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs on Friday announced famine in Gaza city, the enclave’s capital and largest urban centre, and said it would extend to Deir Al Balah in the centre and Khan Younis in the south by the end of September.
The declaration followed months of Israeli restrictions on the entry of aid. Israel rejected the UN report and has justified its policy by accusing the militant group Hamas of stealing supplies, without providing proof.
The blockade resulted in severe shortages of food, including flour, cooking oil, sugar, milk and baby formula, and drove up the cost of existing stocks to several times their normal price, beyond the reach of most of Gaza's two million residents.
“It is a famine that we could've prevented had we been allowed, yet food stacks up at the borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel,” the UN's humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said the famine could be stopped if Israel allowed the immediate entry of aid.
“Reverse the ongoing catastrophe – flood Gaza with a scale-up of aid through the United Nations, including UNRWA,” the agency said in a statement on X.
“UNRWA's warehouses alone in Jordan and Egypt are full” with enough food, medicines and hygiene supplies to fill 6,000 lorries, it said.
On Saturday, the UAE said the total amount of aid it has been allowed to take into Gaza has reached 3,772 tonnes.
Since Israel's aid blockade began in March, cutting off food and water supplies, the situation among women and children has severely deteriorated.
Malnutrition had already affected more than 132,000 children under the age of five by June, including 41,000 severe cases, the UN said.
Additionally, more than 40 per cent of pregnant and breastfeeding women in Gaza are severely malnourished.
“One in five babies is born prematurely or underweight, and one in seven newborns is in need of emergency neonatal care because of severe complications,” it said.
Israel's military is continuing to launch attacks across the enclave as it prepares for an invasion of Gaza city that would displace a million people living there.
Nineteen people, including six children and a baby, were among those killed by Israeli attacks on displacement camps in southern Gaza on Saturday, Wafa reported.
Israel targeted the southern city of Khan Younis as well as the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza, it said.
The Palestinian death toll from Israel's war on Gaza rose to 62,622 with another 157,673 injured, Gaza's Health Ministry said on Saturday.
The war began in October 2023, when Hamas killed about 1,200 civilians and captured 250 hostages in southern Israel.
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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.”
