Israel launches bloody ground offensive into Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp

The United Nations has warned that Israel is using “lethal war-like tactics” against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, more than a week after the occupying entity launched a massive military aggression in the Palestinian territory, killing dozens of people.

At a press conference in New York on Tuesday, spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Stéphane Dujarric, said that the Tel Aviv regime had resumed its aggression in Tulkarm and Jenin.

“The UN has recorded more than two dozen fatalities over the past week, including children,” he said, adding that multiple organizations mobilized by the OCHA were set to carry out an assessment in Jenin but were denied access by the Israeli authorities. 

“OCHA warns that access impediments are impacting the ability to provide meaningful humanitarian response,” Dujarric said, noting that the movement of ambulances and medical teams has been impeded and delayed since the onset of the current aggression.

In the early hours of August 28, the Israeli military conducted its biggest operation – dubbed “Camps of Summer” – in the West Bank in over 20 years, deploying hundreds of troops and airstrikes on Jenin, Tulkarem, and Tubas, which are major centers of Palestinian resistance against the occupying entity.

The ongoing military aggression in the West Bank is currently concentrated in the city of Jenin, whose streets and infrastructure have been damaged by over 70 percent since the onset of the “Camps of Summer”, according to its municipality.

Dujarric also warned that Israeli forces continue to employ “lethal war-like tactics” in the West Bank, including airstrikes, with people being killed, injured and displaced.

While in Tulkarem on Saturday, OCHA teams verified that 120 Palestinians, including over 40 children, were displaced due to the destruction of their homes.

“At the time of the assessment, 13,000 people in Nour Shams refugee camp experienced water cut-offs, attributed to damages caused to the water network, and sewage overflow was observed. The teams also noted that the population was traumatized and in need of psychosocial support,” the OCHA report said.

Since the onset of the current aggression in the West Bank, the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces has increased to 34. This includes 19 in Jenin, 8 in Tulkarm, 4 in Tubas, and 3 in al-Khalil. The total death toll in the occupied West Bank has now reached 685 since October 7 last year.

The heightened tensions in the occupied West Bank come as the Israeli regime has since October been conducting a barbaric onslaught on the besieged Gaza Strip, claiming the lives of more than 40,000 people, most of them women and children. 

The arrest of a Dubai-based businessman who arrived in Bengaluru to purchase an apartment with the proceeds of a Rs 2.2 crore ‘FedEx fraud’ perpetrated on a 75-year-old coffee planter from Kodagu has resulted in the recovery of as much as Rs 1.7 crore of the stolen funds by the cybercrime unit of the Karnataka Criminal Investigation Department (CID).

This is one of the biggest breakthroughs in the FedEx fraud cases wherein unsuspecting victims are targeted and held “digital hostage” by fake policemen and other law enforcement agencies with claims of the presence of drugs or materials linked to terrorism in courier packages sent in their names.

The breakthrough in the case where the septuagenarian coffee planter was defrauded of Rs 2.2 crore in May happened after the CID cybercrime unit, which was handed the case, began pursuing 26 mule accounts to which the defrauded funds were diverted by scamsters.

The CID police have now arrested five people involved in handling the mule bank accounts to which the stolen funds were transferred initially and are investigating the role of over half a dozen others involved in laundering the funds including through the purchase of a flat and a luxury car.

The key accused in the case has been identified as Yusuf Seth, a former resident of Bengaluru who is now based in Dubai. He was arrested by the CID this month on his arrival from Dubai for allegedly encashing funds stolen from the coffee planter in May.

The accused “committed online fraud and received crores of money from victims by way of digital arrest, by making video calls by wearing the uniforms of customs officers and police officers. They have purchased expensive and luxurious foreign cars and also apartments from the said amount,” the CID informed a local court last week during a bail hearing for a suspect.

In the Kodagu case, the coffee planter received a call on the morning of May 11 this year, wherein a caller claiming to be from the FedEx courier company said that 200 grams of the narcotic MDMA drug had been seized by the police in a parcel sent in the name of the coffee planter. The victim was connected to a person impersonating a police officer by the caller.

The fake crime branch police officer claimed that a case had been registered in connection with the MDMA drug seizure and that the 75-year-old man should prove his innocence by transferring funds from his bank account for verifications.

The victim initially transferred a sum of Rs 1,20,40,000 to a Canara Bank account through RTGS on May 18 and again on May 21 he transferred a sum of Rs 1,01,00,000 to a State Bank of India account. Despite the transfer of Rs 2.21 crore to the callers, the victim continued to receive calls with demands for liquidating his stock holdings, thereby raising his suspicions.

The victim approached the Kodagu CEN (cybercrime, economic offences, narcotics) police and filed a complaint on May 28 and the case was transferred to the CID cybercrime wing on account of the large amount involved.

“During the investigation, it was found that the fraudulent money was transferred to around 26 bank accounts,” the CID said in an official statement on the probe last week.

Based on the information from the money trail for the stolen funds, the CID police arrested four people – Mohammad Shakib, Mohammad Ayan, Ahsan Ansari, and Soloman Raja, who are all residents of Bengaluru who allegedly created some of the fake accounts to which the fraudulent funds were transferred.

Based on the investigation of the people behind the mule accounts in the fraud, the CID police found that a person, Yusuf Seth, who was living in Dubai was behind the operations. The CID police nabbed Seth this month when he allegedly arrived to encash the stolen funds and purchase a flat and a luxury car.

The arrests have led to the recovery of Rs 1,70,00,000 in cash from the accused and $7,700 in US dollar bills, as well as counterfeit money, the CID police said in a statement.

The CID is investigating more suspects from Bengaluru. One suspect, Abdul Rehman Khan, is alleged to have purchased a Mercedes Benz worth Rs 40 lakh with the stolen funds on behalf of Seth. Two others, Saibanuddin and Navid Jan, are alleged to have also aided the gang.

The CID told a local court during an anticipatory bail hearing for Rehman Khan that he purchased a Mercedes Benz with Rs 40 lakh linked to the defrauded funds he received through the hawala route. The court rejected the anticipatory bail plea on August 17.

The gang involved in the FedEx fraud on the Kodagu coffee planter has been found to be linked to as many as 15 other similar cases around India, the police said.

While the number of FedEx frauds – which were rampant in Karnataka in 2023 – reduced to a large extent this year, they still continue to exist with elderly unsuspecting victims falling prey, a Bengaluru police official said.

Previous cases

In one of the first instances of arrests in the rampant scam, the Bengaluru police in December 2023 arrested eight people for cheating Rs 1.08 crore from a retired man.

The police investigations revealed that nearly Rs 9.34 lakh of the stolen Rs 1.08 crore was transferred to an RBL bank account and withdrawn in Davangere in central Karnataka. The police examined the CCTV footage at the bank to determine the identities of the suspects who had physically withdrawn a portion of the money.

Based on information from the leads in Davangere, the Bengaluru North Cen police arrested eight people and seized Rs 13.17 lakh of cash in their possession. About Rs 19 lakh in various accounts linked to the accused were also frozen. The gang was found to be using 11 mobile phones and as many as 148 bank accounts for their activities.

“The arrests were possible because the accounts where some of the funds from the crime were transferred were in Karnataka and this facilitated investigation of the persons who withdrew the money in cash,” a senior Bengaluru police officer said.

The police investigations have revealed that the arrested persons in Bengaluru and Davangere were recruited through an online Telegram group to create bank accounts for receiving the funds stolen from victims in the courier scam.

They were also tasked with withdrawing the stolen funds from accounts under their control and converting them into cryptocurrency for payments in Dubai.

The bank account operators were paid commissions on the amounts of stolen money they helped launder, the police said.

21-year-old Kaivalya Vohra and 22-year-old Aadit Palicha of quick-commerce startup Zepto with net worth of Rs 3,600 crore and Rs 4,300 crore respectively have topped the 2024 Hurun India Rich List showcasing the youngest entrepreneurs in the country. 

The list, released on Thursday, had SG Finserve’s Rohan Gupta & Family, 25, on the third spot with a wealth of Rs 1,300 crore followed by 26-year-old Shasvat Nakrani of BharatPe (Rs 1,300 crore). 

OYO’s Ritesh Agarwal, 30, with a net worth of Rs 1,900 core; Alakh Pandey, 32, of Physics Wallah with Rs 4,500 crore in wealth were also on the list. Razorpay’s Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar, both 33, were the richest in the ‘Hurun India Rich List – Youngest’ with each having a net worth of Rs 8,700 crore. 

“These individuals are driving change across various industries, reflecting the growing impact of India’s youth in business,” the report said. 

52 entrepreneurs on this year’s list were founders of 29 unicorns and two founders of gazelles, defined as most likely to ‘go unicorn’ within two years. Moreover, the cumulative wealth of Indian unicorn and gazelle listers on the rich list increased by 5 per cent to Rs 2.85 lakh crore. 

Meanwhile, this year’s list reported India’s billionaire count hitting 334, topped by Gautam Adani and family with 95 per cent growth in wealth to Rs 11.6 lakh crore followed by Rs 10.14 lakh crore net worth of Mukesh Ambani and family, Rs 3.14 lakh crore of Shiv Nadar and family, Rs 2.89 lakh crore of Cyrus S Poonawalla and family, and Rs 2.49 lakh crore of Sun Pharmaceutical Industries’ Dilip Sanghvi. 

“India is emerging as Asia’s wealth creation engine! While China saw a 25% decline in its number of billionaires, India experienced a 29% increase, reaching a record 334 billionaires,” said Anas Rahman Junaid, Founder and Chief Researcher, Hurun India. 

The list found 1,539 individuals across 134 cities with a net worth of Rs 1,000 crore. The cumulative wealth of individuals, according to the list, jumped by 46 per cent. Moreover, 1,334 individuals saw their wealth increase or stay the same, of which 272 are new entrants, while 205 recorded a drop in their wealth. 

The report said India minted a new billionaire every five days last year.

Sector-wise, industrial products had 142 individuals from the list while pharmaceuticals had 136 individuals. Chemicals, software, and real estate were other top sectors with 127, 105, and 91 rich individuals from this year’s list. 

“The pivot in the Indian economy from a services-led to a manufacturing-led model is reflected in the 2024 Hurun India Rich List. Industrial products sector entrepreneurs on the list have seen a remarkable 47% CAGR in their cumulative wealth over the past five years—the highest among all sectors,” said Junaid. 

This shift, he said, is fueled by several key factors, including the central government’s significant increase in capital expenditure on infrastructure development, which has risen to $133.3 billion for FY2024-25, marking an 11.1 per cent jump from the previous year.  

“Additionally, India attracted substantial foreign direct investment (FDI), with total inflows reaching US$17.96 billion in FY2023-24.” 

Mumbai with 386 individuals followed by New Delhi with 217 individuals were home to rich listers this year. Bengaluru (100), Chennai (82), Kolkata (69) were other top cities.