HomeAwardsAward WinnersSociete Generale – World’s Best Bank And World’s Best Frontier Market Bank For 2025
SlawomirKrupa, Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors of Societe Generale
Global Finance announces its selections for the World’s Best Banks 2025, including its honoree for the World’s Best Bank, which is being revealed here for the first time. The 2025 World’s Best Bank is Societe Generale.
“Societe Generale stood out from its competition in the past year. Its global presence, deep local market knowledge, broad range of innovative corporate and consumer offerings, and leadership in sustainable finance have helped the bank deliver strong growth and even stronger profitability,” said Joseph Giarraputo, founder and editorial director of Global Finance. “For more than three decades, corporate and banking leaders have used Global Finance’s Best Bank Awards to identify financial partners that provide the most robust products and services and comprehensive industry expertise.”
Societe Generale has further been selected as The World’s Best Frontier Market Bank
“Whether it is enabling businesses to interact with the local or global economy, Societe Generale is the leading provider of financial products and services for the frontier markets. The bank’s broad portfolio of offerings ranges from the latest digital banking advancements to assistance in moving to more sustainable infrastructures that are tailored for small and medium-sized enterprises,” said Joseph Giarraputo, founder and editorial director of Global Finance. “For more than three decades, corporate and banking leaders have used Global Finance’s Best Bank Awards to identify financial partners that provide the most robust products and services and comprehensive industry expertise.”
Also being revealed here for the first time are the following global honorees: World’s Best Corporate Bank – BBVA, World’s Best Consumer Bank – State Bank of India, World’s Best Emerging Market Bank – J.P. Morgan, World’s Best Frontier Market Bank – Societe Generale and World’s Best Sub-Custodian Bank – CIBC Mellon.
Editorial Coverage of Societe Generale
Q&A With Societe Generale Factoring’s Aurélien Viry And Gilbert Cordier
In conversation with Gilbert Cordier, Head of Supply Chain Finance, Societe Generale
The full World’s Best Banks report will be featured in Global Finance’s October print and digital editions, as well as online at GFMag.com.
Global Finance will honor the World’s Best Banks 2025 on the morning of October 18 at the annual World’s Best Bank Awards Ceremony at the National Press Club in Washington, DC during the IMF/World Bank Annual Meetings.
Winners were selected based on performance over the past year and other criteria including reputation and management excellence. Global Finance’s editorial board made the selections with input from corporate financial executives, analysts and bankers throughout the world. The editors also used entries submitted by banks for Global Finance’s 2025 awards programs, in addition to independent research, to evaluate a series of objective and subjective factors.
Societe Generale recognitions throughout 2025
World’s Best Investment Bank For Sustainable Financing—Global Winners
Most Innovative Bank in Western Europe—Regional And Country Winners
World’s Best Supply Chain Finance Provider—Global Winners
Logo Use Rights
To obtain rights to use Global Finance’s Award Logos, please contact Chris Giarraputo at: [email protected]. The unauthorized use of Global Finance Logos is strictly prohibited.
Top church leaders and diplomats have called on Israeli settlers to be held accountable during a visit to the predominantly Christian town of Taybeh in the occupied West Bank, after settlers intensified attacks on the area in recent weeks.
Representatives from more than 20 countries including the United Kingdom, Russia, China, Japan, Jordan, and the European Union, were among the delegates who visited the village in the West Bank on Monday.
Speaking in Taybeh, Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III and Latin Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa denounced an incident last week when settlers set fires near the community’s church.
They said that Israeli authorities failed to respond to emergency calls for help from the Palestinian community.
In a separate statement, the patriarchs and heads of churches in Jerusalem demanded an investigation into the incident and called for the settlers to be held accountable by the Israeli authorities, “who facilitate and enable their presence around Taybeh”.
The church leaders also said that settlers had brought their cattle to graze on Palestinian lands in the area, set fire to several homes last month, and put up a sign reading “there is no future for you here”.
Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim, reporting from Doha, said church leaders have been calling this a “systemic and targeted attack” against Christians.
“About 50,000 of them live in the occupied West Bank, a small but very proud minority,” Ibrahim said. “They also consider themselves under attack, not just because they’re Christians but because they’re Palestinians.”
The church has been trying for years to “enhance the steadfastness of the Christian community in Palestine”, Ibrahim said.
“We’ve been seeing how Israeli settlers have been pushing them out of their lands, out of their homes.”
Settlers, who are often armed, are backed by Israeli army soldiers and regularly carry out attacks against Palestinians, their lands, and property. Several rights groups have documented repeated instances where Israeli settlers in the West Bank ransack Palestinian neighbourhoods and towns, burning homes and vehicles.
Assaults have grown in scale and intensity since Israel’s brutal war on Gaza began in October 2023. These assaults also include large-scale incursions by Israeli forces into Palestinian towns and cities across the West Bank that have killed hundreds of Palestinians and displaced tens of thousands.
Pizzaballa, the top Catholic cleric in Jerusalem, said he believed the West Bank was becoming a lawless area.
“The only law [in the West Bank] is that of power, of those who have the force, not the law. We must work for the law to return to this part of the country, so anyone can appeal to the law to enforce their rights,” Pizzaballa told reporters.
He and Theophilos prayed together at the Church of St George, whose religious site dates back centuries, adjacent to the area where settlers ignited the fires.
The visit comes as Palestinians report a new surge of settler violence.
On Monday, Israeli settlers and soldiers launched several more attacks across the West Bank, including in Bethlehem, where settlers uprooted hundreds of olive trees in al-Maniya village, southeast of the city, and Israeli authorities demolished a four-storey residential building.
The head of the al-Maniya village council, Zayed Kawazba, told Wafa news agency that a group of settlers stormed al-Qarn in the centre of al-Maniya, set up four tents and uprooted approximately 1,500 olive saplings belonging to families from the al-Motawer and Jabarin clans.
A day earlier, hundreds descended on the village of Al-Mazraa ash-Sharqiya, south of Taybeh, for the funeral of two young men killed during a settler attack on Friday.
The occupied West Bank is home to more than three million Palestinians who live under harsh Israeli military rule, with the Palestinian Authority governing in limited areas separated from each other by a myriad of Israeli checkpoints.
Israel has so far built more than 100 settlements across the West Bank, which are home to about 500,000 settlers who live illegally on private Palestinian land.
The Bank of England is prepared to make larger interest rate cuts if the job market shows signs of slowing down, its governor has said.
In an interview with the Times, Andrew Bailey said “I really do believe the path is downward” on interest rates.
Interest rates currently stand at 4.25% and will be reviewed at the Bank’s next meeting on 7 August, when many economists expect the rate will be cut.
They affect mortgage, credit card and savings rates for millions of people.
Speaking to the Times, Mr Bailey said the UK’s economy was growing behind its potential, opening up “slack” that would help to bring down inflation.
The governor said there were consistent signs that businesses were “adjusting employment and hours” and were giving smaller pay rises following UK Chancellor Rachel Reeve’s moveto increase employers’ national insurance contributions.
Reeves raised national insurance rates for employers from 13.8% to 15% in April this year, in a move the government estimated would generate £25bn a year.
The latest official figures show the number of job vacancies in the UK has dropped to 736,000 over the three months to May – its lowest level since 2021 when firms had halted hiring during the Covid pandemic.
Meanwhile, the number of people available for work has jumped at its fastest pace since the pandemic, according to a survey from auditor KPMG and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation trade body.
“I think the path [for interest rates] is down. I really do believe the path is downward,” the governor said.
“But we continue to use the words ‘gradual and careful’ because… some people say to me ‘why are you cutting when inflation’s above target?”‘ he added.
Louise Dudley, portfolio manager at investor Federated Hermes, told the BBC’s Today programme that Mr Bailey’s comments suggested a rate cut was likely “sooner rather than later”.
Interest rates were left unchanged during the Bank’s last meeting in June, following two cuts earlier in the year.
During that meeting, Mr Bailey also said interest rates would take a “gradual downward path”.
The UK economy contracted by 0.1% in May, after also shrinking in April, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The unexpected dip was mainly driven by a drop in manufacturing, while retail sales were also “very weak”, said the ONS.
As Israel’s unrelenting war on Gaza continues, deadly attacks by Israeli settlers and forces against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have also soared to near-daily killings.
According to Shireen.ps, a database compiled by Palestinian journalists, 177 Palestinians have been killed there this year alone.
On Friday, Israeli settlers beat to death 20-year-old American Palestinian Sayfollah Musallet, his family stating that the mob surrounded him for three hours during the assault and attacked medics attempting to reach him.
Eight other Palestinians were also slain this past week – including one child – as a result of settler attacks, as well as targeted assassinations and raids conducted by Israeli troops.
In four instances, the bodies of those killed have been detained by Israeli authorities.
Here are the eight other Palestinians killed in the past week:
Wissam Ghassan Ishtiyeh, 37
Shtayyeh was killed on July 6 during an Israeli raid on the village of Salem, east of Nablus, according to Shireen.ps.
Israeli forces stormed the village and surrounded two houses during the operation, local sources reported.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health stated that Israeli authorities had held his body, refusing to release it to the family for burial.
The Israeli military confirmed the killing.
الشهيدان وسام غسان اشتية وقصي ناصر نصار، اللذان ارتقيا برصاص الاحتلال عقب حصار منزل في قرية سالم شرق نابلس، ولا يزال الاحتلال يحتجز جثمان الشهيد اشتية. pic.twitter.com/Pl2NY2rDHK
Translation: The martyrs Wissam Ghassan Ishtiyeh and Qusay Nasser Nassar, who were killed by occupation forces’ gunfire following the siege of a house in the village of Salem, east of Nablus, and the occupation continues to detain the body of the martyr Ishtayeh.
Qusay Nasser Mahmoud Nassar, 23
Nassar was also killed on July 6 in Salem, caught in the crossfire as Israeli forces killed Shtayyeh.
Israeli forces had detained the young man’s body, but later the Palestine Red Crescent Society received it and rushed him to Rafidia Hospital, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
Ahmad Nafeth Gabriel al-Awiwi, 19
Al-Awiwi died on July 8 in Hebron, succumbing to his injuries after being shot by Israeli forces during a raid on the city six months ago, according to Shireen.ps.
The young man was hospitalised a week ago for brain surgery related to his injuries; however, his health deteriorated, and his death was announced last week, local sources reported.
Painful farewells and prayers to the Palestinian youth, Ahmad Nafeth Al-Awiwi, who succumbed to his wounds following his injury by Israeli occupation fire nearly six months ago. pic.twitter.com/vkgqFwaqjM
Shalakhti died of critical wounds on July 9, after being shot by Israeli forces three days earlier in the Askar al-Jadid camp in Nablus, Wafa reported.
The boy was shot with live ammunition by an “Israeli soldier positioned inside a heavily armoured Israeli military vehicle” around 9:30pm on July 6, according to documentation collected by Defense for Children International – Palestine.
“My brother, my life, and friend,” his mother stated in an emotional address following his death, according to footage verified by Al Jazeera.
Mourners carry the body of 12-year-old Shalakhti, who succumbed to his wounds sustained on July 6 during an Israeli raid in Askar al-Jadid camp near Nablus in the occupied West Bank [File: Zain Jaafar/AFP]
Ahmed Ali al-Amour, 54
Al-Amour was shot at by Israeli forces on July 10 and then run over by an Israeli military vehicle in Rummana, west of Jenin, according to local sources.
Authorities in Israel claimed that he was attempting a suicide attack, Shireen.ps reported.
Israeli soldiers seized al-Amour’s body, Wafa reported. Local sources told the agency they also arrested his sons, claiming that a soldier had been moderately injured in a stabbing attack.
The man’s killing was part of a raid on the town, where Israeli forces raided a large number of homes and destroyed their contents, Wafa said. They also deployed sniper teams and launched a wide-scale arrest campaign in the town.
With al-Amour’s death, the number of those killed in the Jenin governorate since the start of Israeli military raids there on January 21 has risen to 41.
Palestinian Ministry of Health stated that the Israeli occupation forces held the body of Ahmad Ali Al-Amour (55 years old), who was killed this morning under the pretext of carrying out a stabbing attack in the town of Rummana, west of Jenin.#Israelpic.twitter.com/AOapzmCFVk
Mahmoud Youssef Mohamed Abed, 23 and Malik Ismail Abdul Jabbar Salem, 23
The men were shot dead on July 10 in the Gush Etzion settlement, south of Bethlehem. Israeli police said they had carried out a stabbing and shooting attack there.
Abed was from the town of Halhul in the Hebron governorate, while Salem lived in Bazariya, west of Nablus, according to Wafa.
The agency reported that the attack by the young men resulted in the death of one Israeli settler. Their bodies were detained by Israeli authorities.
مصادر محلية: الشهيدان محمود يوسف محمد عابد (٢٣ عاماً) من حلحول ومالك إبراهيم عبد الجبار سالم (٢٣ عاماً) من بلدة بزاريا بنابلس منفذا عملية “غوش عتصيون” شمال الخليل. pic.twitter.com/CzHCP8kpIU
Translation: Local sources: The martyrs Mahmoud Youssef Mohamed Abed (23 years old) from Halhul and Malik Ismail Abdul Jabbar Salem (23 years old) from the town of Bazariya in Nablus, the perpetrators of the “Gush Etzion” operation north of Hebron.
Muhammad Rizq Hassan al-Shalabi, 23
Al-Shalabi was lost during a settler attack on the town of Sinjil, north of Ramallah, on July 11, and was later found dead after being shot and beaten by settlers there, according to local sources.
It was the same attack in which American citizen Musallet was killed.
The Palestinian Health Ministry, citing a medical report, stated that al-Shalabi was killed after being shot in the chest, which penetrated his back.
He was also left to bleed for several hours, the ministry said.
Activist Ayed Ghafri told Wafa that dozens of settlers armed with automatic rifles attacked residents who were protesting against the construction of a new settlement outpost in Khirbet al-Tal, accompanied by foreign solidarity activists.
The attack also resulted in the injury of 10 citizens from the villages and towns of Sinjil, al-Mazraa ash-Sharqiya, Abwein, and Jaljalia, north of Ramallah, with wounds and fractures, the agency added.
The municipality of Sinjil condemned the killings of the two men, saying it “will only increase our adherence to our land and our determination to defend it by all legitimate means”.
الشهيد محمد رزق شلبي الذي عثر عليه بعد ساعات من اختفاءه وتظهر على جسده علامات تعذيب وضرب مبرح على أيدي المستوطنين خلال تصديه للهجوم على سنجل شمال رام الله. pic.twitter.com/7D78pbVmq5
Translation: Muhammad Rizq al-Shalabi, who was found hours after his disappearance, showing signs of torture and severe beating at the hands of settlers during his resistance to the attack on Sinjil, north of Ramallah.
There are only three bank holidays left in England and Wales this year
Bank holidays provide a perfect opportunity to go out and spend time with loved ones(Image: JohnnyGreig via Getty Images)
Mark your calendars, folks – it’s time to jot down the remaining bank holidays for 2025. In England and Wales, we’ve only got three more to look forward to this year, with the next one just over a month away.
Regrettably, there are no plans to add any extra days off to the total of eight we’re getting in 2025, as there aren’t any national events on the horizon. However, many Brits will be chuffed to know that one is scheduled during the peak of summer on August 25, offering us the opportunity to (hopefully) bask in some much-needed sunshine.
The remaining bank holiday dates for England and Wales in 2025 are:
Summer bank holiday: August 25 (Monday)
Christmas Day: December 25 (Thursday)
Boxing Day: December 26 (Friday)
While England and Wales have just three bank holidays left, residents of Scotland and Northern Ireland still have four to enjoy in 2025. In Scotland, these fall on August 4, December 1 of St Andrew’s Day, in addition to Christmas and Boxing Day.
Meanwhile, Northern Ireland’s bank holidays fall on July 14, marking the Battle of Boyne and August 25, followed by December 25 and 26. Those who also like to plan ahead can start pondering their 2026 and 2027 bank holidays now, as the Government has already unveiled its upcoming schedule.
The next bank holiday date falls on August 25 in England and Wales(Image: Abstract Aerial Art via Getty Images)
While many people relish the day off on a bank holiday, it’s vital to remember that you’re not always guaranteed to get paid leave. It’s worth having a chat with your employer about your options.
Bank holidays can also impact how and when benefits are paid. If your payment date falls on a weekend or bank holiday, you’ll likely receive your money the working day before. However, this may differ for the Child Benefit.
Israeli settlers have beaten to death a United States citizen in the occupied West Bank, the victim’s family members and rights groups have said.
Settlers attacked and killed Sayfollah Musallet – who was in his early 20s – in the town of Sinjil, north of Ramallah, on Friday, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
Musallet, also known as Saif al-Din Musalat, had travelled from his home in Florida to visit family in Palestine, his cousin Fatmah Muhammad said in a social media post.
Another Palestinian, identified by the Health Ministry as Mohammed Shalabi, was fatally shot by settlers during the attack.
Rights advocates have documented repeated instances where Israeli settlers in the West Bank ransack Palestinian neighbourhoods and towns, burning homes and vehicles in attacks sometimes described as pogroms.
The Israeli military often protects the settlers during their rampages and has shot Palestinians who show any resistance.
The United Nations and other prominent human rights organisations consider the Israeli settlements in the West Bank violations of international law, as part of a broader strategy to displace Palestinians.
While some Western countries like France and Australia have imposed sanctions on violent settlers, attacks have increased since the outbreak of Israel’s war in Gaza in October 2023.
When Donald Trump took office earlier this year, his administration revoked sanctions on settlers imposed by his predecessor, Joe Biden.
Israeli forces have killed at least nine US citizens since 2022, including veteran Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh.
But none of the incidents have resulted in criminal charges.
The US provides billions of dollars to Israel every year. Advocates have accused successive US administrations of failing to protect American citizens from Israeli violence in the Middle East.
On Friday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) called on Washington to ensure accountability for the killing of Musallet.
“Every other murder of an American citizen has gone unpunished by the American government, which is why the Israeli government keeps wantonly killing American Palestinians and, of course, other Palestinians,” CAIR deputy director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said in a statement.
He then pointed out that Trump has repeatedly promised to prioritise American interests, as typified by his campaign slogan “America First”.
“If President Trump will not even put America first when Israel murders American citizens, then this is truly an Israel First administration,” Mitchell said.
The Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) also called for action from the US administration, noting that settlers are “lynching Palestinians more frequently – with full support from Israel’s army and government”.
“The US government has a legal and moral obligation to stop Israel’s racist violence against Palestinians. Instead, it’s still backing and funding it,” the group said in a statement.
The US Department of State did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment about the killing of Musallet.
The Palestinian group Hamas condemned the murder of Musallet, describing it as “barbaric”, and called on Palestinians across the West Bank to rise up to “confront the settlers and their terrorist attacks”.
Israel said it was “investigating” what happened in Sinjil, claiming that the violence started when Palestinians threw rocks at an Israeli vehicle.
“Shortly thereafter, violent clashes developed in the area between Palestinians and Israeli civilians, which included the destruction of Palestinian property, arson, physical confrontations, and stone-throwing,” the Israeli military said in a statement.
Israeli investigations often lead to no charges or meaningful accountability for the abuses of Israeli officers and settlers.
As settler and military violence intensifies in the West Bank, Israel has killed at least 57,762 Palestinians in Gaza in a campaign that rights groups have described as a genocide.
Israeli soldiers bound Mohamed Yousef’s hands behind his back as they dragged him to a military camp near the occupied West Bank’s Masafer Yatta, a collection of Palestinian villages in Hebron governorate, in late June.
With him were his mother, his wife and two sisters, arrested on their land for confronting armed Israeli settlers.
Settlers often graze their animals on Palestinian land to assert control, signal unrestricted access and lay the groundwork for establishing illegal outposts, cutting Palestinians off from their farms and livestock.
Yousef knew this, so he went out to defend his farm when he saw the armed settlers.
But as is often the case, it was Mohamed, a Palestinian, who was punished. At the military camp, he was left with his family in the scorching sun for hours.
While Mohamed and his family were released the next day, they fear they will not have the means to defend themselves for much longer.
“The police, the [Israeli] army and settlers often attack us all at once. What are we supposed to do?” Yousef said.
The Israeli military did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment on the incident.
Useful pretext
Things might be about to get worse for Yousef and his family, who, along with about 1,200 other Palestinians, could soon be expelled from their lands.
On June 17, during the zenith of Israel’s war on Iran, the Israeli government submitted a letter, a copy of which has been seen by Al Jazeera, to the Israeli High Court of Justice that included a request by the army to demolish at least 12 villages in Masafer Yatta and expel the inhabitants.
The Israeli army argued that it has to demolish the villages to convert the area into a military “firing” or training zone, according to Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups.
However, a 2015 study by Kerem Novat, an Israeli civil society organisation, found that such justifications are a ruse to seize Palestinian land. From the time Israel occupied swaths of the West Bank in the 1967 war, it has converted about one-third of the West Bank into a “closed military zone”, according to the study.
And yet, military drills have never been carried out in 80 percent of these zones after Palestinians were dispossessed of their homes.
Palestinians carry their belongings as they are forced to leave their homes after Israel issues demolition orders for 104 buildings in Tulkarem, occupied West Bank on July 3, 2025 [Faruk Hanedar/Anadolu]
The study concluded that the military confiscates Palestinian land as a strategy to “reduce the Palestinian population’s ability to use the land and to transfer as much of it as possible to Israeli settlers”.
Yousef fears his village could suffer a similar fate following the state’s petition to the High Court.
“I have no idea what’s going to happen to us,” Mohamed told Al Jazeera. “Even if we are forced to leave, then where are we supposed to go? Where will we live?”
Rigged system
Many fear the Israeli High Court will side with the army and evict all Palestinians from “Firing Zone 918”, a battle that has been ongoing for decades.
Israeli courts have played a central role in rubber-stamping Israel’s policies in the occupied West Bank, described as apartheid by many, by approving the demolition of entire Palestinian communities, according to Amnesty International.
The communities currently at risk were first handed an eviction notice and expelled in 1999, and told that their villages had been declared a military training zone, which the army dubbed “Firing Zone 918”.
The army claimed that the herding communities living in this “zone” were not “permanent residents”, despite the communities saying they lived there long before the state of Israel was formed by ethnically cleansing Palestinians in 1948, an event known as the Nakba.
With little recourse other than navigating an unfriendly Israeli legal system to resist their dispossession, the communities and human rights lawyers representing them initiated a legal battle to stop the evictions in Israeli district courts and the High Court.
In 2000, a judge ordered the army to allow the communities to return to their villages until a final ruling was issued.
Human rights lawyers have since filed countless petitions and appeals to delay and hinder the army’s attempt to expel the villagers.
“The [Israelis]…have been trying to expel us for decades,” said 63-year-old Nidal Younis, the head of the Masafer Yatta Council.
Then, in May 2022, the High Court ordered the expulsion of eight Masafer Yatta villages. The court ruled that the inhabitants were not “permanent residents”, ignoring evidence that the defence provided.
“We brought [the court] artefacts, photo analyses and ancient tools, used by the families for decades, that were representative of permanent residence,” said Netta Amar-Shiff, one of the lawyers representing the villagers.
“But the court dismissed all the evidence we brought as irrelevant.”
Expediting demolitions
Amar-Shiff and her colleagues filed another case in early 2023 to argue that military drills must, at the very least, not result in the demolition of Palestinian villages or the expulsion of inhabitants in the area.
The legal battle, and others, is now being upended by the Israeli army and government’s request to evict and demolish all the villages in the desired military zone, said Amar-Shiff.
In an attempt to fast-track that request, the Civil Planning Bureau, an Israeli military body responsible for building permits, issued a decree on June 18 to reject all pending Palestinian building requests in “Firing Zone 918”. The United Nations and Israeli human rights groups have been notified of the new decree, although it has not been published on any government website.
Across Israel and the occupied West Bank, Palestinians and Israelis need to obtain building permits from Israeli authorities to build and live in any structure.
An Israeli policeman stands by as a bulldozer demolishes the house of Fakhri Abu Diab, in Silwan, occupied East Jerusalem, February 14, 2024 [Ammar Awad/Reuters]
According to the Israeli human rights group Bimkom, Palestinians in Area C, the largest of three zones in the occupied West Bank that were created out of the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords, are practically always denied permits, while permits for Israeli settlers are almost always approved.
Palestinians in Masafer Yatta still submitted many building requests, hoping the administrative process would delay the demolition of their homes.
However, the Central Planning Bureau’s recent decree, issued to align with the army’s prior announcement, supersedes all these pending requests and paves the way for an outright rejection of all of them, facilitating more ethnic cleansing, according to activists, lawyers and human rights groups.
Once the decree is published, lawyers representing Palestinians from “Firing Zone 918” will have to go to the High Court for a final and definitive ruling, which is expected within a few months.
“There are many judges in the High Court who will either dismiss this case on its face or not order the army to stop demolitions until they rule,” Amar-Shiff told Al Jazeera.
Meanwhile, settlers and Israeli troops are escalating attacks against Palestinians living in the area.
Sami Hourani, a researcher from Masafer Yatta for Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights organisation, said the Israeli army has confiscated dozens of cars since declaring its intent to ethnically cleanse the villages.
He added that the army is arresting solidarity activists trying to visit the area, as well as helping settlers to attack and expel Palestinians.
“We are in an isolation stage now,” Hourani told Al Jazeera, adding that the villages in Masafer Yatta are under siege and cut off from the outside world.
“We are expecting the army to carry out massive demolitions at any moment.”
WASHINGTON — If he wins the presidential election, Joe Biden will find a Middle East quite different from the one at the end of the Obama administration.
Nuclear threats may once again be on the horizon in Iran. Militant groups are on the ascendance in Lebanon and Yemen. And Israelis and Palestinians stand further away from settling their conflict than they have in a long time.
Biden says his first task will be repairing much of what he and his supporters consider to be the damage done by President Trump, who demolished long-standing norms and decades of U.S. policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“Joe Biden will benefit just by not being President Trump,” Biden’s top foreign policy advisor Tony Blinken said in a recent interview. “That is the opening opportunity.”
More difficult will be deciding whether to reverse some of Trump’s controversial actions and, if so, which ones.
The Palestinian Authority leadership boycotted administration-led peace talks after Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moved the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to the disputed holy city.
Palestinians claim the eastern part of the city — which Israel seized during the 1967 Middle East War — as their capital. For decades the U.S. avoided recognizing either side’s claim in Jerusalem pending a final peace agreement.
Biden’s advisors say he will not return the U.S. Embassy to Tel Aviv, but it is likely he would reopen a U.S. Consulate in East Jerusalem that would cater to Palestinians and allow a Palestinian de facto embassy in Washington.
Regaining Palestinian trust will be a major challenge. The Biden team has released careful, measured policies for the decades-old conflict, a clear rebuke to Trump, but disappointing to many progressives.
Unlike Trump, Biden supports the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.
“There will be a very important statement about the intention to pursue a two-state solution,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of J Street, a pro-Israel advocacy organization in Washington and informal advisor to the campaign. “Those signals will be sent early.”
And Biden said he plans to revive U.S. financial aid to support Palestinians that was cut off by Trump as punishment for what he termed their lack of cooperation.
His hands will be partly tied by Congress. The 2018 Taylor Force Act prohibits U.S. aid from going to some Palestinian entities as long as the Palestinian Authority gives stipends to families of Palestinians killed in attacks on Israelis. It will be easier to resume funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which supports hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees, and to hospitals in Palestinian-dominated parts of East Jerusalem, all cut off by Trump.
Biden is likely to frown on any Israeli annexation of West Bank land it seized during the 1967 war and that Palestinians have claimed for their state. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s annexation plan was tacitly approved by Trump, but has since been put on hold, partly out of concern about hurting Trump in November and partly because of a pending agreement to normalize diplomatic relations with United Arab Emirates.
How strongly Biden might act to block annexation remains to be seen. He has been careful not to say that U.S. aid to Israel would be conditioned on Israeli behavior.
Much of what Biden could do might be mired in U.S. domestic politics. Any action risks antagonizing either the pro-Israel lobby or the progressive wing of his party.
“I think the best we can hope for from a Biden government is undoing a lot of the damage and doing no more harm, while giving the Palestinians space to get their own house in order,” said Khaled Elgindy, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, a Washington think tank, and director of the Palestine and Israeli-Palestinian affairs program.
Elgindy and others predicted there would be no bold initiatives on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the beginning of a Biden administration. There will be more-pressing crises, his advisors say, and the environment is not ripe for new negotiations.
Netanyahu got nearly everything he wanted with no concessions from Trump, so he has little incentive now to negotiate.
Palestinians, long skeptical about whether the U.S. could be a neutral broker in peace talks, gave up any hope of that after Trump. Members of the governing Palestinian Authority are biding their time, Elgindy and others said, hoping that a Biden victory at least returns the troubled U.S-Palestinian relationship back to a better footing.
“Have we given up on the U.S.? Yes,” said Diana Buttu, a Palestinian attorney and former legal advisor to the Palestinian Authority headed by President Mahmoud Abbas. At most, she predicted, “we will see that Biden will reach out to Abbas, but won’t do much other than that.”
She said that in addition to failing to condemn the U.S. Embassy relocation, Democratic Party leadership declined to include a reference in its platform to the “ongoing occupation” of Palestinian territories by Israel.
Another of Trump’s surprising breaks from years of U.S. policy came when he recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a large, fertile plateau that Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 war. It is unclear whether such a move can be easily reversed, and there appears to be little precedent for it. On the other hand, recognition did not lead to any concrete U.S. action and put the United States in conflict with the rest of the international community, which views Israel’s control over Golan as a violation of international law.
On Iran, Biden is expected to chart a dramatically different course, and one that Netanyahu won’t like.
Trump unilaterally withdrew the U.S. from the landmark 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which forced the Islamic Republic to dismantle most of its infrastructure that could be used to produce nuclear weapons, in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions on Tehran and release of its assets frozen in banks all over the world.
Trump — prodded by Netanyahu — contended the deal was flawed because it failed to limit other Iranian activities such as its support for the region’s militant groups, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and Houthi rebels in Yemen. In recent months, the Trump administration has piled on new sanctions and other punishment to increase pressure on Iran in hopes of destroying the deal once and for all.
Biden wants to revive it by first bringing Iran back into compliance, and then reenlisting the United States.
“Assuming the deal is still on life support when he takes office, [Biden] would move toward mutual reentry,” said Colin Kahl, who served as national security advisor to the then-vice president and now consults with the campaign.
Biden said this year that once the deal is revived, he would work with European allies to “strengthen and extend it, while more effectively pushing back against Iran’s other destabilizing activities.”
Israel’s government, which views Iran as an existential threat, has been working to undermine the nuclear agreement since before it was signed.
Another unknown will be the relationship between Biden and Netanyahu.
Trump and Netanyahu had one of the warmest relationships between any U.S. and Israeli leaders. That’s a hard act for Biden to follow, particularly since he’s associated with the Obama administration, which repeatedly and bitterly clashed with Netanyahu.
But Biden has known Netanyahu for decades, including during the years the Israeli leader spent in the United States. According to aides, the pair enjoy an amiable if sometimes prickly friendship.
The highest rate of home demolitions since 1967 is currently underway by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank. Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim explains the impact of the destruction on Palestinian communities.
At least 50 Palestinian families from a Bedouin community in the occupied West Bank have fled their homes, following repeated assaults and harassment from Israeli settlers under the protection of Israeli forces, according to media reports and a local rights group.
Thirty Palestinian families were forcibly displaced on Friday morning from the Arab Mleihat Bedouin community, northwest of Jericho, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported, while 20 others were displaced on Thursday.
Before the forced displacement, the community was home to 85 families, numbering about 500 people.
A Palestinian rights group, the Al-Baidar Organization for the Defense of Bedouin Rights, said the families were forced to leave after years trying to defend themselves “without any support”. Attacks by Israeli forces and Israelis from illegal settlements have surged across the occupied West Bank since Israel’s war on Gaza began on October 7, 2023.
Alia Mleihat told Wafa that her family was forced to flee to the Aqbat Jabr refugee camp, south of Jericho, after armed settlers threatened her and other families at gunpoint.
Separately, Mahmoud Mleihat, a 50-year-old father of seven from the community, told the Reuters news agency that they could not take it any more, so they decided to leave.
“The settlers are armed and attack us, and the [Israeli] military protects them. We can’t do anything to stop them,” he said.
Hassan Mleihat, director of the Al-Baidar Organization, said families in the community began dismantling their tents, following sustained provocation and attacks by Israeli settlers and the army.
Footage posted on social media and verified by Al Jazeera’s Sanad agency showed trucks loaded with possessions driving away from the area at night.
Hassan told Wafa that the attacks also threatened to erase the community, and “open the way for illegal colonial expansion”.
‘We want to protect our children’
Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has documented repeated acts of violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in Mu’arrajat, near Jericho, where the Mleihat tribe lives.
In 2024, settlers armed with clubs stormed a Palestinian school, while in 2023, armed settlers blocked the path of vehicles carrying Palestinians, with some firing into the air and others hurling stones at the vehicles.
“We want to protect our children, and we’ve decided to leave,” Mahmoud said, describing it as a great injustice.
He had lived in the community since he was 10, Mahmoud said.
Alia Mleihat told Reuters the Bedouin community, which had lived there for 40 years, would now be scattered across different parts of the Jordan Valley, including nearby Jericho.
“People are demolishing their own homes with their own hands, leaving this village they’ve lived in for decades, the place where their dreams were built,” she said, describing the forced displacement of 30 families as a “new Nakba”.
The Nakba, meaning “catastrophe” in Arabic, refers to the mass displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes during 1948 at the birth of the state of Israel.
Israel’s military has not yet commented on the settler harassment faced by the Bedouin families or about the families leaving their community.
Asked about violence in the occupied West Bank, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar told reporters on Monday that any acts of violence by civilians were unacceptable and that individuals should not take the law into their own hands.
Activists say Israeli settlement expansion has accelerated in recent years, displacing Palestinians, who have remained on their land under military occupation since Israel captured the occupied West Bank in the 1967 war.
Most countries consider Israeli settlements illegal and a violation of the Geneva Conventions, which ban settling civilians on occupied land.
India’s Yes Bank expects to sell a 20% stake to Japan’s second-largest bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC), a wholly owned subsidiary of Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, for $1.58 billion, pending regulatory approvals from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Competition Commission of India.
If successful, the transaction will represent the biggest cross-border M&A deal in India’s financial sector and is likely to be completed by the second quarter of 2025. During the March 2020 Yes Bank crisis, the RBI proposed a reconstruction plan to rescue the bank with the support of the State Bank of India (SBI) and other banks. SMBC will acquire a 13.19% stake from SBI and a 6.81% stake from other institutions, including Axis Bank, Bandhan Bank, Federal Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, IDFC First Bank, and Kotak Mahindra Bank, through a secondary stake purchase.
The fact that crisis-stricken Yes Bank is attracting highquality investors to replace SBI and other banks underscores its recovery following the 2020 crisis, giving a boost to the banking sector. SMBC is bullish about the Indian banking sector and is, therefore, aiming to invest for the long term.
After the transaction, SMBC will become the largest shareholder of Yes Bank and will appoint two members to its board. SBI will retain a 10.8% stake in Yes Bank, while other banks will collectively hold only a 2.9% stake. CA Basque Investments, affiliated with the Carlyle Group, and Verventa Holdings, an affiliate of Advent International, will retain 6.8% and 9.2%, respectively. The public will have a 50.26% stake in Yes Bank.
The entry of SMBC establishes a new precedent for future foreign acquisitions in India’s banking sector and enhances corporate governance standards. Furthermore, the deal will facilitate the exchange of goods and services between India and Japan.
Indian foreign investment norms cap voting rights for investors in banks at 26% and investments by financial institutions in Indian banks at 15%, a stumbling block for the entry of foreign investors. A higher cap on voting rights and an increase in investment threshold could encourage foreign investors.
At least four Palestinians, including a teenager, have been killed in the occupied West Bank, where soldiers have been carrying out deadly raids for months and settlers have been violently rampaging against civilians unchecked, backed by the military.
The teenager was shot by Israeli forces, while the other three Palestinians were killed in an Israeli settler attack on the town of Kafr Malek, northeast of Ramallah. Seven others were injured in the settler attack.
Dozens of Israeli settlers attacked the town, burning vehicles and homes as residents of neighbouring villages attempted to confront them, local sources said. Israeli troops provided protection for the settlers and fired live rounds.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society said it treated at least five wounded Palestinians who suffered gunshot wounds, with some in serious condition.
Palestinian Vice President Hussein al-Sheikh said the settlers were acting “under the protection of the Israeli army”.
“We call on the international community to urgently intervene to protect our Palestinian people,” he added, in a message on X.
In the other deadly incident, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said that Israeli troops shot dead a 15-year-old Palestinian boy during a raid on al-Yamoun, a town west of Jenin.
The ministry identified the teenager as Rayan Tamer Houshieh and said he succumbed to his wounds after being shot in the neck.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said that its teams had handled “a very critical case” in al-Yamoun, involving a teenager, before pronouncing him dead.
The al-Yamoun incident marked the second time a teenager has been reported killed in the occupied territory in two days.
On Monday, the Health Ministry said that Israeli fire killed a 13-year-old, identified as Ammar Hamayel, in Kafr Malek.
The occupied West Bank is home to more than 3 million Palestinians who live under harsh Israeli military rule, with the Palestinian Authority governing in limited areas cut off from each other by a myriad of Israeli checkpoints.
Israel has so far built more than 100 settlements across the West Bank, which are home to about 500,000 settlers – Israeli citizens living illegally on private Palestinian land in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.
Daily Israeli raids
Although Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza has garnered more attention, Palestinian suffering in the occupied West Bank has been acute, with hundreds of deaths, thousands of people displaced, house demolitions and significant destruction since October 7, 2023.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Palestine has expressed alarm at the “wave of renewed violence” by Israeli settlers and armed forces in the West Bank earlier this year.
“Israel must immediately and completely cease all settlement activities and evacuate all settlers, stop the forcible transfer of the Palestinian population, and prevent and punish attacks by its security forces and settlers,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said.
Separately, earlier on Wednesday, a 66-year-old woman was shot in the head and killed by Israeli forces during a raid on the Shu’fat refugee camp, north of occupied East Jerusalem, according to several local media reports.
The Jerusalem governorate identified the woman as Zahriya Joudeh al-Obaid.
Her husband, Joudah Al-Obeidi, a 67-year-old resident of the camp, said his wife was standing on the roof of their home when Israeli forces stormed the area. He confirmed that police shot her in the head, and that she had posed no threat.
Like other refugee camps in Israeli-occupied areas, Shu’fat has seen repeated Israeli raids that often result in deaths, injuries and arrests.
In the northern West Bank, large-scale military incursions into Jenin and its refugee camp, as well as Tulkarem and the Nur Shams refugee camp, have resulted in widespread destruction and displacement of at least 40,000 people, according to UN figures.
Since Israeli forces launched its latest operation in Jenin 156 days ago, at least 40 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Wafa news agency.
June 25 (UPI) — The World Bank on Wednesday announced a $1.3 billion investment in projects in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria.
The costliest of the three projects will happen in Iraq, as the World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors approved $930 million in financing to help improve the country’s railways.
“As Iraq shifts from reconstruction to development, enhanced trade and connectivity can stimulate growth, create jobs, and reduce oil dependency,” said the World Bank’s Middle East Division Director Jean-Christophe Carret of the Iraq Railways Extension and Modernization, or IREM, project, which is intended to improve railway services and infrastructure between the Umm Qasr Port in southern Iraq and Mosul in northern Iraq.
IREM is expected to fix and improve about 650 miles of existing railway, improve the performance of the Iraqi Republic Railways, or IRR, reduce travel time and also allow for an increase in freight volumes, which should give rail users more in the way of reliable transport services.
“The IREM project is vital for transforming Iraq into a regional transport hub and helping achieve the [Iraq Development Road’s] goals of improved connectivity and economic diversification and growth,” Carret added.
The Iraq Development Road project, which was greenlit in 2023, is a regional railway that connects the Gulf region through Iraq to Turkey and then extends into Europe. Once enacted, by 2037 IREM should allow the IRR to carry millions of people and tons of freight through eight of Iraq’s provinces and create nearly 22,000 jobs annually by 2040.
For Syria, the World Bank’s board has approved a $146 million grant to help restore reliable electricity and support the country’s economic recovery via the Syria Electricity Emergency Project, or SEEP.
SEEP is slated to pay for the rehabilitation of high voltage transmission lines that were damaged during years of conflict, as well as repair transformer substations in the areas that receive the highest number of refugees and displaced people while arranging for technical assistance and investment plans.
“Electricity is a foundational investment for economic progress, service delivery and livelihoods,” said Syrian Finance Minister Yisr Barnieh, who noted this project was the first for the World Bank in Syria in almost 40 years.
“We hope it will lay the ground for a comprehensive and structured support program to help Syria on its path to recovery and long-term development,” he added.
According to the World Bank, damage to Syria’s national grid currently limits electrical usage there to only between two and four hours daily.
Conflict in Lebanon over the past two years has damaged buildings and infrastructure that are necessary to effectively serve in several of the nation’s sectors, such as education, health care, energy, transportation and water. The World Bank’s funding will go to the Lebanon Emergency Assistance Project, or LEAP, which is intended to address reconstruction and recovery as quickly as possible.
Director Carret says LEAP “offers a credible vehicle for development partners to align their support, alongside continued progress on the government’s reform agenda, and maximize collective impact in support of Lebanon’s recovery and long-term reconstruction.”
Colombian Foreign Minister Laura Sarabia hailed entry into the BRICS-backed New Development Bank. File Pool Photo by Tingshu Wang/EPA-EFE
June 20 (UPI) — Colombia’s recent entry into the BRICS-backed New Development Bank marks a significant shift in its foreign and economic policy. With the move, President Gustavo Petro’s administration aims to reduce the country’s long-standing reliance on Western financing and attract new investment for strategic infrastructure projects.
“Colombia officially joins the BRICS New Development Bank. This membership opens new financing opportunities for strategic projects and is a key step toward diversifying alliances and strengthening the country’s economy,” the Colombian presidency announced Thursday in a post on X.
Colombia’s membership involves an initial $512 million commitment and makes it the first South American nation to formally join the bank, which is backed by 11 BRICS full members, including China, Russia, India, South Africa and Brazil.
Foreign Minister Laura Sarabia welcomed the announcement, saying the move goes beyond financial strategy and reflects broader national goals. “We continue to pave the way for new opportunities for the country,” she wrote on X.
Beyond access to loans with fewer conditions, the move carries significant symbolic weight. It reflects the Petro administration’s interest in redefining Colombia’s international role, shifting away from the traditional Washington-Bogotá axis to pursue a more independent path aligned with the Global South.
The announcement has sparked both enthusiasm and skepticism among Colombian analysts, who warn of financial risks, geopolitical consequences and the delicate balance Bogotá must maintain with the United States, its primary trading and military partner.
The Petro government has defended the move as a pragmatic step amid global economic volatility and the weakening of the traditional multilateral order.
Officials also see it as an opportunity to advance strategic projects such as the interoceanic railway — an ambitious infrastructure initiative aimed at positioning Colombia as a commercial hub between Asia and the Caribbean.
Colombia’s Foreign Ministry and Finance Ministry officials emphasized that joining the New Development Bank does not signal a break with the Inter-American Development Bank or the International Monetary Fund.
“This is about having more options, not replacing allies,” Finance Minister Ricardo Bonilla said.
Still, reactions in Colombia remain divided. While lawmakers from the ruling coalition praised what they called the country’s “financial emancipation,” opposition groups and business associations raised concerns about the fiscal burden and reputational risks of aligning with a bloc that includes China and Russia.
“Do we want to depend on the yuan or the ruble? What guarantees does a bank dominated by authoritarian regimes offer?” conservative senator and former presidential candidate Enrique Gómez asked.
Colombia has long been one of the United States’ closest allies in the fight against drug trafficking and in supporting the liberal economic model promoted by Washington. Against that backdrop, closer ties with China have raised tensions.
The U.S. State Department has said it will firmly oppose financing for Latin American projects tied to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a global investment strategy backed by Beijing that aims to expand its economic influence through critical infrastructure development around the world.
Founded in 2015, the New Development Bank aims to provide financing for infrastructure and sustainable development in emerging economies, with fewer political conditions than the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank.
To date, it has approved more than $40 billion in funding for 122 infrastructure projects in sectors such as transportation, clean energy and sanitation.
The Bank of England has hinted at further interest rate cuts, which could come as soon as August.
It decided to keep rates at 4.25% on Thursday with inflation, the rate prices rise at over time, remaining at its highest level for more than a year and above the Bank’s target rate.
Governor Andrew Bailey said interest rates “remain on a gradual downward path”, but warned: “The world is highly unpredictable.”
There are concerns that the conflict between Israel and Iran, a major oil producer, could send energy costs higher and drive overall prices up, which would impact further rate decisions.
The Bank said it was “sensitive” to events in the Middle East and the impact on oil prices, which could have knock-on effects for the UK economy.
It noted that since its last meeting in May, oil prices had risen by 26% while gas prices grew by 11%.
The bank marginally lifted its expectations for the UK economy but it said that underlying growth was “weak”.
UK growth has been uneven so far this year, with the economy expanding strongly at the start of the 2025, before shrinking sharply in April.
There has been evidence that the pace of wage growth – which contributes to the rate of inflation – is slowing. At the same time, the UK’s unemployment rate has risen and businesses are holding off on recruiting or replacing staff.
“In the UK we are seeing signs of softening in the labour market. We will be looking carefully at the extent to which those signs feed through to consumer price inflation,” said Mr Bailey.
The Bank’s base interest rate dictates the rates set by High Street banks and lenders.
The higher level in recent years has meant people are paying more to borrow money for things like mortgages and credit cards, but savers have also received better returns.
Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown, said the chances of two interest rate cuts this year were “still on the horizon”.
In every direction, there’s a conundrum to confront, so policymakers have judged that pressing the pause button on rates is the best option for now.
“Hopes for a summer rate reduction haven’t completely faded, with bets ramping up that a cut in August could provide the rays of relief that borrowers have been waiting for,” she added.
Pressure growing on businesses
Businesses appeared to be trimming wages for some workers to pay for the rise in employment costs that came into force in April.
Employers have been hit with a rise in the amount of National Insurance they are required to pay as well as increases to the minimum wage. The Bank estimated the policy changes by Chancellor Rachel Reeves have hiked wage bills by 10%.
In the its survey of businesses, it said that pressure had grown on firms to recover the higher costs by raising prices but added “success is mixed”.
Instead it said companies were using a range of measures to cut costs, including reducing pay rises for those workers just above the minimum wage level.
Inflation remains above the Bank target of 2% at 3.4% in the year to May, and is expected to climb to 3.5% later this year. But it is expected fall back to around 2.1% next year.
Interest rates are the Bank’s main tool in try to maintain the annual rate of inflation at, or close to its target.
The theory behind increasing interest rates to tackle inflation is that by making borrowing more expensive, more people will cut back on spending and that leads to demand for goods falling and price rises easing.
But it is a balancing act as high interest rates can harm the economy as businesses hold off on investing in production and jobs.
The former Japanese interpreter for Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani surrendered to a federal prison in Pennsylvania on Monday, beginning a nearly five-year prison sentence for bank and tax fraud after he stole nearly $17 million from the Los Angeles Dodgers player.
Ippei Mizuhara, 40, was processed at a low-security federal prison in Allenwood, Pa., his attorney Michael Freedman confirmed. The facility is about 125 miles northwest of Philadelphia.
Mizuhara was sentenced in federal court in Santa Ana in February to four years and nine months for bank and tax fraud. He was also ordered to pay $18 million in restitution, with nearly $17 million going to Ohtani and the remainder to the IRS. He was sentenced to three years’ supervised release on top of the prison sentence.
Authorities said Mizuhara began accessing Ohtani’s account beginning in 2021 and changed its security protocols so he could impersonate Ohtani to authorize wire transfers. He has admitted to using the money to cover his growing gambling bets and debts with an illegal bookmaker, in addition to purchasing $325,000 worth of baseball cards and paying his own dental bills.
He was a close friend and confidant to Ohtani, standing by his side for many of his career highlights, from serving as his catcher during the Home Run Derby at the 2021 All-Star Game, to being there for his two American League MVP wins and his record-shattering $700 million, 10-year deal with the Dodgers.
Ohtani made his highly anticipated pitching debut Monday night for the Dodgers, nearly two years after having elbow surgery.
