Live updates: Follow the latest on Israel-Gaza
Israeli forces are closing in on Gaza’s main Al Shifa Hospital, housing as many as 15,000 people seeking shelter from fighting in the enclave, including about 1,500 patients and a similar number of medical staff.
Conditions at the hospital are grim as fuel is running out, meaning there is not enough power to keep babies alive in incubators.
Here’s what you need to know about the crisis at the hospital that has become the scene of one of the most bleak episodes of the war so far.
What has happened at Al Shifa?
Israel has already hit the structure with an air strike on the building's cardiology ward, the Health Ministry in Gaza said.
Scores of civilians have died in strikes just metres from the hospital entrance, where thousands are often crowded in car parks and other outside areas.
Dr Mohammad Abu Silmeyye, director of the hospital, on Monday told The National two people had been shot dead trying to leave the hospital.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) surgeon Mohammed Obeid said on social media that two babies had already died in the neonatal clinic. The World Health Organisation (WHO) said at least 36 more babies could die and the hospital is out of water.
Israeli air strikes on hospitals in Gaza have drawn global condemnation because of the humanitarian suffering caused.
Israel has long insisted that Hamas has a bunker housing its main command centre under the building.
Experts say the group would be breaching international law by using human shields, while others say bombing a hospital could violate the principle of “proportionality” in international humanitarian law, making any Israeli attack a war crime.
“The ability of hospitals and medical facilities to operate is paramount, especially during conflicts,” the WHO said last week in reference to Al Shifa. "In line with international humanitarian law, we call for the protection of all medical facilities, personnel, patients and the wounded."
More than a month into the war, more than 11,000 Gazans have been killed in Israeli bombardments – more than five times the death toll of the Israel-Hamas war in 2014.
Why is Israel attacking the hospital?
Israel’s army said on October 27 that “hundreds of terrorists flooded into the hospital to hide” after Hamas’s October 7 attack in Israel that killed about 1,200 people, down from an initial estimate of 1,400.
They say Hamas has used the complex for years, first making the allegations during the 2009 Gaza war. Israeli commanders allege it has been incorporated into a vast tunnel complex across Gaza, said to comprise as much as 500 kilometres of concrete passages.
Hamas strongly denies the claim, while Israel has produced maps and graphics attempting to justify their claims, but no defining evidence.
The WHO on Sunday said that in the previous 48 hours the hospital had been attacked many times, leaving several dead and many others injured.
The intensive care unit suffered damage from bombardment, it said, while areas of the hospital where displaced people were sheltering have also been damaged.
One patient using an incubator to help them breathe reportedly died when electricity was cut, the WHO said.
Israel claims it has offered fuel for the hospital – although health officials say it is not nearly enough – as well as safe corridors to evacuate civilians.
The hospital was last bombed in 2014, during a month-long battle between Israel and Hamas that left about 2,000 people dead.
Doctors Without Borders said at the time that targeting hospitals and their surroundings was "completely unacceptable and a serious violation of international humanitarian Law”.
The hospital was also the site of fighting between Hamas and Fatah in 2007, when the former took over Gaza, Human Rights Watch said, but the organisation did not specify whether it was being used as a base for Hamas.
What have world leaders said about Al Shifa?
So far, only US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has directly commented on the situation on the hospital, as most world leaders focus on overall condemnation of Israel’s massive bombardment of Gaza.
On Saturday, France’s President Emmanuel Macron, while urging Israel to stop its attacks, said: “These babies, these ladies, these old people are bombed and killed” without giving more details.
Mr Sullivan said on Sunday on CBS show Face the Nation that Washington “does not want to see firefights in hospitals where innocent people, patients receiving medical care, are caught in the crossfire".
He said the US had had "active consultations" with the Israel army. He said the US believed Hamas was using hospitals for “command and control” in “a violation of the laws of war”.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday followed Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s denial that the hospital had been bombed, saying Israel had offered “to give them enough fuel to operate the hospital, operate the incubators and so on, because we have no battle with patients or civilians at all”.
The WHO last week said only two deliveries of “life-saving” supplies had reached the hospital, calling conditions at Al Shifa "disastrous”.
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Company: Justmop.com
Date started: December 2015
Founders: Kerem Kuyucu and Cagatay Ozcan
Sector: Technology and home services
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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.”
Day 1, Abu Dhabi Test: At a glance
Moment of the day Dimuth Karunaratne had batted with plenty of pluck, and no little skill, in getting to within seven runs of a first-day century. Then, while he ran what he thought was a comfortable single to mid-on, his batting partner Dinesh Chandimal opted to stay at home. The opener was run out by the length of the pitch.
Stat of the day - 1 One six was hit on Day 1. The boundary was only breached 18 times in total over the course of the 90 overs. When it did arrive, the lone six was a thing of beauty, as Niroshan Dickwella effortlessly clipped Mohammed Amir over the square-leg boundary.
The verdict Three wickets down at lunch, on a featherbed wicket having won the toss, and Sri Lanka’s fragile confidence must have been waning. Then Karunaratne and Chandimal's alliance of precisely 100 gave them a foothold in the match. Dickwella’s free-spirited strokeplay meant the Sri Lankans were handily placed at 227 for four at the close.
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Brief scores:
Toss: Sindhis, elected to field first
Kerala Knights 103-7 (10 ov)
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