Part 1 of 3
FROM ECONOMY OF OCCUPATION TO ECONOMY OF GENOCIDE. Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967*, **Report of the Special Rapporteur [Francesca Albanese] on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967*
Human Rights Council
Fifty-ninth session
16 June–11 July 2025
Agenda item 7: Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories
https://www.un.org/unispal/document/a-h ... tine-2025/FROM ECONOMY OF OCCUPATION TO ECONOMY OF GENOCIDE
Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967*, **
Summary
This report investigates the corporate machinery sustaining Israel’s settler-colonial project of displacement and replacement of the Palestinians in the occupied territory. While political leaders and governments shirk their obligations, far too many corporate entities have profited from Israel’s economy of illegal occupation, apartheid and now, genocide. The complicity exposed by this report is just the tip of the iceberg; ending it will not happen without holding the private sector accountable, including its executives. International law recognizes varying degrees of responsibility – each requiring scrutiny and accountability, particularly in this case, where a people’s self-determination and very existence are at stake. This is a necessary step to end the genocide and dismantle the global system that has allowed it.
I. Introduction
1. Colonial endeavours and their associated genocides have historically been driven and enabled by the corporate sector.[1] Commercial interests have contributed to the dispossession of Indigenous people and lands[2] – a mode of domination known as “colonial racial capitalism”.[3] The same is true of Israeli colonization of Palestinian lands,[4] its expansion into the occupied Palestinian territory and its institutionalization of a regime of settler-colonial apartheid.[5] After denying Palestinian self-determination for decades, Israel is now imperilling the very existence of the Palestinian people in Palestine.
2. The role of corporate entities in sustaining Israel’s illegal occupation and ongoing genocidal campaign in Gaza is the subject of this investigation, which focuses on how corporate interests underpin Israeli settler-colonial the twofold logic of displacement and replacement aimed at dispossessing and erasing Palestinians from their lands. It discusses corporate entities in various sectors: arms manufacturers, tech firms, building and construction companies, extractive and service industries, banks, pension funds, insurers, universities and charities. These entities enable the denial of self-determination and other structural violations in the occupied Palestinian territory, including occupation, annexation and crimes of apartheid and genocide, as well as a long list of ancillary crimes and human rights violations, from discrimination, wanton destruction, forced displacement and pillage, to extrajudicial killing and starvation.
3. Had proper human rights due diligence been undertaken, corporate entities would have long ago disengaged from Israeli occupation. Instead, post-October 2023, corporate actors have contributed to the acceleration of the displacement-replacement process throughout the military campaign that has pulverized Gaza and displaced the largest number of Palestinians in the West Bank since 1967.[6]
4. While it is impossible to fully capture the scale and extent of decades of corporate connivance in the exploitation of the occupied Palestinian territory, this report exposes the integration of the economies of settler-colonial occupation and genocide. It calls for accountability for corporate entities and their executives at both domestic and international levels: commercial endeavours enabling and profiting from the obliteration of innocent people’s lives must cease. Corporate entities must refuse to be complicit in human rights violations and international crimes or be held to account.
II. Methodology
5. “Corporate entities” in this report refers to business enterprises, multinational corporations, for-profit and not-for-profit entities, whether private, public or State-owned.[7] Corporate responsibility applies regardless of the size, sector, operational context, ownership and structure of the entity.[8]
6. The report builds on extensive literature, especially by civil society[9] and by the Working Group on Business and Human Rights, on how Israel has created and maintained its own economy through the occupation, and a captive economy for the Palestinians.
7. It also builds upon and situates within the broader matrix of Israel’s unlawful occupation, the database established by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), pursuant to Human Rights Council resolutions 31/36 and 53/25. The “UN Database” lists only business enterprises that have “directly and indirectly enabled, facilitated and profited from the construction and growth of the settlements”.[10]
8. The Special Rapporteur developed a database of 1000 corporate entities from the unprecedented 200+ submissions received, following her call for input when preparing this investigation.[11] This helped map how corporate entities worldwide have been implicated in human rights violations and international crimes in the occupied Palestinian territory. Over 45 entities named in the report have been duly informed of the facts that led the Special Rapporteur to formulate a series of allegations: 15 replied. The complex web of corporate structures – and the often obscured links between parents and subsidiaries, franchises, joint ventures, licencees, etc. – implicates many more. The investigation behind this report demonstrates the lengths to which corporations will go to conceal their complicity.[12]
9. The report is complemented by an annex presenting the relevant legal framework.
III. Legal context
10. The law governing corporate responsibility has deep roots in the historic relationship between violent dispossession and private power, and the legacy of corporate collusion with settler-colonialism and racial segregation.[13]
11. Early charter companies, granted broad State-like powers, gradually evolved into private “limited liability” corporations as intercolonial trade grew vital to European economies.[14] Colonial powers continued to rely on these relationships to outsource, obscure and avoid accountability for the dispossession and enslavement of Indigenous peoples and the expropriation of their resources.[15] Corporations have not only inherited the benefits of this legal veil of separation, but have also emerged as shapers of international law.[16]
12. Today, some corporate conglomerates exceed the GDP of sovereign States.[17] Sometimes wielding more power – political, economic and discursive – than States themselves, corporations enjoy increasing recognition as rights-holders, with still insufficient corresponding obligations. The asymmetry of immense power without sufficiently justiciable accountability exposes a fundamental global governance gap.
13. Corporations and their home States – primarily Global Minority States – continue to exploit structural inequalities rooted in colonial dispossession.[18] Meanwhile, weaker regulatory systems in formerly colonized States, and development and investment imperatives mean corporations often evade accountability.[19]
14. Nevertheless, important precedents exist. The post-Holocaust Industrialists’ Trials laid the groundwork for recognizing the international criminal responsibility of corporate executives for participation in international crimes.[20] By addressing corporate complicity in apartheid, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission helped shape corporate responsibility for human rights violations.[21] Increasing domestic and international litigation signal a growing trend toward corporate accountability.[22]
15. The case of Palestine further tests international standards.
16. Today, the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights set out the normative framework for States’ and corporate entities’ compliance with international law.[23] States have the primary obligation to prevent, investigate, punish and remedy human rights abuses by third parties, and may breach their obligations if they fail to do so. The Guiding Principles crystallize the human rights standards applicable to corporate conduct which apply regardless of whether states uphold their primary obligations. International humanitarian law and criminal law also confer specific obligations and liabilities on private actors,[24] with domestic jurisdictions primarily responsible for enforcement.
17. The Guiding Principles establish a continuum of responsibilities, depending on whether corporate entities cause, contribute to or are directly linked with adverse human rights impacts.[25] In conflicts, businesses must observe heightened human rights due diligence to identify concerns and adjust their conduct.[26] The liability of corporate entities will be determined by their actions and by human rights impact: due diligence is not sufficient to absolve corporations of liability.[27] At a minimum, corporate entities directly linked to human rights impacts must exercise leverage or consider termination of their activities or relationships. Failure to act accordingly may give rise to liability. Where violations constitute crimes, corporate executives and, increasingly, entities themselves, may be held accountable for their knowledge and material contributions to crimes.[28]
18. In the occupied Palestinian territory, building on decades of documented human rights violations and crimes, recent judicial developments leave no room for doubt that corporate engagement with any component of the occupation is connected with violations of jus cogens norms and international crimes.[29] Citing racial segregation and apartheid, violations of the right to self-determination and the prohibition on the use of force, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) unequivocally affirmed the illegality of Israel’s presence including military, colonies, infrastructure and resource control.[30] Furthermore, the atrocities committed since October 2023 triggered proceedings for genocide before the ICJ, and for war crimes and crimes against humanity before the ICC. The ICJ has ordered Israel to stop creating life-destroying conditions, and, in Nicaragua v Germany, reminded States of their international obligations to avoid transferring arms that might be used to violate international conventions.[31]
19. These decisions place on corporate entities a prima facie responsibility to not engage and/or to withdraw totally and unconditionally from any associated dealings, and to ensure that any engagement with Palestinians enables their self-determination.
20. Where corporate entities continue their activities and relationships with Israel – with its economy, military, public and private sectors connected to the occupied Palestinian territory – they may be found to have knowingly contributed to:
• violation of the Palestinian right to self-determination;
• annexation of Palestinian territory, maintenance of an unlawful occupation and therefore the crime of aggression and associated human rights violations;
• crimes of apartheid and genocide, and
• other ancillary crimes and violations.
21. Both criminal and civil laws in various jurisdictions can be invoked to hold corporate entities or their executives accountable for violations of human rights and/or crimes under international law.
IV. From the economy of settler-colonial occupation to the economy of genocide
22. Settler-colonialism involves extraction and profit from, and colonization of, land through the expulsion of its owners.[32] In Palestine, historically, companies have driven and enabled the process of displacement-replacement of the Arab population, foundational to the logic of settler-colonial erasure.[33] The Jewish National Fund, a land-purchasing corporate entity founded in 1901, helped plan and carry out the gradual removal of Arab Palestinians, which intensified with the Nakba[34] and has continued ever since.[35]
23. Increasingly aided by corporate entities, Israel has pursued Palestinian dispossession and displacement, especially after 1967.[36] The corporate sector has materially contributed to this endeavour by providing Israel with the weapons and machinery required to destroy homes, schools, hospitals, places of leisure and worship, livelihoods and productive assets such as olive groves and orchards, to segregate and control communities and restrict access to natural resources.[37] By helping to militarize and incentivize illegal Israeli presence in the occupied Palestinian territory, they have contributed to the creation of the conditions for Palestinian ethnic cleansing.[38]
24. Corporate entities have played a key role in stifling the Palestinian economy,[39] sustaining Israeli expansion in occupied land while facilitating the replacement of Palestinians. Draconian restrictions – on trade and investment, tree planting, fishing and water for colonies – have debilitated agriculture and industry,[40] and turned the occupied Palestinian territory into a captive market;[41] companies have profiteered by exploiting Palestinian labour and resources, degrading and diverting natural resources, building and powering colonies and selling and marketing derived goods and services in Israel, the occupied Palestinian territory and globally.[42] The 1993 Oslo Accords entrenched this exploitation, de facto institutionalizing Israel’s monopoly over 61 per cent of the resource-rich West Bank (Area C).[43] Israel gains from this exploitation, while it costs the Palestinian economy at least 35 per cent of its GDP.[44]
25. Financial and academic institutions have also enabled the conditions for Palestinian displacement-replacement. Banks, asset management firms, pension funds and insurers have channelled finance into the illegal occupation. Universities – centres of intellectual growth and power – have sustained the political ideology underpinning the colonization of Palestinian land,[45] developed weaponry and overlooked or even endorsed systemic violence,[46] while global research collaborations have obscured Palestinian erasure behind a veil of academic neutrality.
26. After October 2023, long-standing systems of control, exploitation and dispossession metamorphosed into economic, technological and political infrastructures mobilized to inflict mass violence and immense destruction.[47] Entities that previously enabled and profited from Palestinian elimination and erasure within the economy of occupation, instead of disengaging are now involved in the economy of genocide.
27. The following sections illustrate how eight key sectors, operating separately and interdependently through the core pillars of the settler-colonial economy of displacement-replacement, have adapted to its genocidal practices.
A. Displacement
28. Post-October 2023, weapons and military technologies used to advance Palestinian expulsion have become tools for mass killing and destruction, rendering Gaza and parts of the West Bank uninhabitable. Surveillance and incarceration technologies, ordinarily used to enforce segregation/apartheid, have evolved into tools for indiscriminate targeting of the Palestinian population. Heavy machinery previously used for house demolitions, infrastructure destruction and resource seizure in the West Bank have been repurposed to obliterate Gaza’s urban landscape, preventing displaced populations from returning and reconstituting as a community.
Military sector: the business of elimination
29. Militarized violence created the State of Israel and remains the engine of its settler-colonial project.[48] Israeli and international weapons manufacturers have developed increasingly effective systems to drive Palestinians off their land. By collaborating and competing, they have refined technologies that enable Israel to intensify oppression, repression and destruction.[49]
30. Prolonged occupation and repeated military campaigns have provided testing grounds for cutting-edge military capabilities: air defence platforms, drones, AI-powered targeting tools and even the US-led F-35 programme. These technologies are then marketed as “battle-proven”.[50]
31. The military-industrial complex has become the economic backbone of the State.[51] Between 2020 and 2024, Israel was the eighth largest arms exporter worldwide.[52] The two most prominent Israeli weapons companies – Elbit Systems, established as a public-private partnership and later privatized, and state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) – are among the top 50 arms manufacturers globally.[53] Since 2023, Elbit has cooperated closely on Israeli military operations, embedding key staff in the Ministry of Defense,[54] and was awarded the 2024 Israeli Defense Prize.[55] Elbit and IAI provide a critical domestic supply of weaponry,[56] and reinforce Israel’s military alliances through arms exports and joint development of military technology.[57]
32. International partnerships providing weaponry and technical support have enhanced Israel’s capacity to perpetuate apartheid and, recently, to sustain its assault on Gaza. Israel benefits from the largest-ever defence procurement programme – for the F-35 fighter jet,[58] led by US-based Lockheed Martin,[59] alongside at least 1600 other companies including Italian manufacturer Leonardo S.p.A,[60] and eight States. Components and parts constructed globally contribute to the Israeli F-35 fleet that Israel customizes and maintains in partnership with Lockheed Martin and domestic companies.[61] Israel was the first to fly the F-35 in combat in 2018, and then to use it in “beast mode” by 2025.[62] Lockheed Martin F-35 and F-16 fighter jets, pivotal to the Israeli air force,[63] have significant carrying and fire capacity, including the 2000lb GBU-31 JDAM bombs and, for F-35s, over 18,000lb of bombs at a time.[64] Post-October 2023, F-35s and F-16s have been integral to equipping Israel with the unprecedented aerial power to drop an estimated 85,000 tons of bombs,[65] kill and injure more than 179,411 Palestinians[66] and obliterate Gaza.[67]
33. Drones, hexacopters and quadcopters have also been omnipresent killing machines in the skies of Gaza.[68] Drones largely developed and supplied by Elbit Systems and IAI have long flown alongside these fighter jets, surveilling Palestinians and delivering target intelligence.[69] In the last two decades, with support from these companies and collaborations with institutions like Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT),[70] Israel’s drones acquired automated weapons systems and the ability to fly in swarm formation.[71]
34. To supply Israel with these weapons and facilitate arms export and import transactions, manufacturers depend on a web of intermediaries, including legal, auditing and consulting firms, as well as arms dealers, agents and brokers.[72] Suppliers like Japanese FANUC Corporation provide robotic machinery for weapons production lines, including for IAI, Elbit Systems and Lockheed Martin.[73] Shipping companies such as Danish A.P. Moller – Maersk A/S transport components, parts, weapons and raw materials, sustaining a steady flow of US-supplied military equipment post-October 2023.[74]
35. For Israeli companies like Elbit and IAI, the ongoing genocide has been a profitable venture. The 65 per cent surge in Israel’s military spending from 2023 to 2024 – amounting to $46.5 billion,[75] one of the highest per capita worldwide – generated a sharp surge in their annual profits.[76] Foreign arms companies, especially the producers of munitions and ordnance, also profit.[77]
Surveillance and carcerality: The dark side of the “Start-up Nation”
36. Repression of Palestinians has become progressively automated, with tech companies providing dual-use[78] infrastructure to integrate mass data collection and surveillance, while profiting from the unique testing ground for military technology offered by the occupied Palestinian territory.[79] Fuelled by US-tech giants establishing subsidiaries and research and development centres in Israel,[80] Israel’s claims of security needs have spurred unparalleled developments in carceral and surveillance services, from CCTV networks, biometric surveillance, high-tech checkpoints networks, “smart walls” and drone surveillance, to cloud computing, artificial intelligence and data analytics supporting on-the-ground military personnel.[81]
37. Israeli tech firms often grow out of military infrastructure and strategy,[82] as did NSO Group, founded by ex-Unit 8200 members.[83] Its Pegasus spyware, designed for covert smartphone surveillance, has been used against Palestinian activists[84] and licensed globally to target leaders, journalists and human rights defenders.[85] Exported under the Defense Export Control Law, NSO group surveillance technology enables “spyware diplomacy” while reinforcing state impunity.[86]
38. IBM has operated in Israel since 1972, training military/intelligence personnel – especially from Unit 8200 – for the tech sector and start-up scene.[87] Since 2019, IBM Israel has operated and upgraded the central database of the Population, Immigration and Borders Authority (PIBA),[88] enabling collection, storage and governmental use of biometric data on Palestinians, and supporting Israel’s discriminatory permit regime.[89] Before IBM, Hewlett Packard Enterprises (HPE)[90] maintained this database and its Israeli subsidiary still provides servers during the transition.[91] HP has long enabled Israel’s apartheid systems, supplying technology to COGAT, the prison service and police.[92] Since HP’s 2015 split into HPE and HP Inc., opaque business structures have obscured the roles of their seven remaining Israeli subsidiaries.[93]
39. Microsoft has been active in Israel since 1991, developing its largest centre outside the US.[94] Its technologies are embedded in the prison service, police, universities and schools – including in colonies.[95] Since 2003, Microsoft has integrated its systems and civilian tech across the Israeli military,[96] while acquiring Israeli cybersecurity and surveillance start-ups.[97]
40. As Israel’s apartheid, military and population-control systems generate increasing volumes of data, its reliance on cloud storage and computing has grown. In 2021, Israel awarded Alphabet Inc (Google) and Amazon.com Inc. a $1.2 billion contract (Project Nimbus)[98] – largely funded through Ministry of Defense expenditure[99] – to provide core tech infrastructure.
41. Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon grant Israel virtually government-wide access to their cloud and AI technologies, enhancing data processing, decision-making and surveillance/analysis capacities.[100] In October 2023, when Israel’s internal military cloud overloaded,[101] Microsoft Azure and Project Nimbus Consortium stepped in with critical cloud and AI infrastructure.[102] Their Israel-located servers ensure data sovereignty and a shield from accountability,[103] under favourable contracts offering minimal restrictions or oversight.[104] In July 2024, an Israeli colonel described cloud tech as “a weapon in every sense of the word”, citing these companies.[105]
42. The Israeli military has developed AI systems like “Lavender”, “Gospel” and “Where’s Daddy?” to process data and generate lists of targets,[106] reshaping modern warfare and illustrating AI’s dual-use nature. Palantir Technology Inc., whose tech collaboration with Israel long predates October 2023, expanded its support to the Israeli military post-October 2023.[107] There are reasonable grounds to believe Palantir has provided automatic predictive policing technology, core defence infrastructure for rapid and scaled-up construction and deployment of military software, and its Artificial Intelligence Platform, which allows real-time battlefield data integration for automated decision-making.[108] In January 2024, Palantir announced a new strategic partnership with Israel and held a board meeting in Tel Aviv “in solidarity”;[109] in April 2025, Palantir’s CEO responded to accusations that Palantir had killed Palestinians in Gaza by saying, “mostly terrorists, that’s true”.[110] Both incidents are indicative of executive-level knowledge and purpose vis-à-vis Israel’s unlawful use of force, and failure to prevent such acts or withdraw involvement.[111]
43. Israel as “Start-up Nation”, incentivized by the post-9/11 global securitization boom, has received a significant boost through the genocide. It ranked first globally for the number of start-ups per capita, with a 143 per cent growth in military tech start-ups in 2024, and with tech comprising 64 per cent of Israeli exports throughout the genocide.[112]
Civilian guise: Heavy machinery in service of settler-colonial destruction
44. Civilian technologies have long served as dual-use tools of settler-colonial occupation.[113] Israeli military operations heavily rely on equipment from leading global manufacturers to unground Palestinians from their land,[114] demolishing homes, public buildings, farmland, roads and other vital infrastructure. Since October 2023, this machinery has been integral to damaging and destroying 70 per cent of structures and 81 per cent of cropland in Gaza.[115]
45. For decades, Caterpillar Inc.[116] has provided Israel with equipment used to demolish Palestinian homes and infrastructure,[117] through both the US Foreign Military Financing programme[118] and an exclusive licensee requisitioned by Israeli law into the military.[119] In partnership with companies like IAI,[120] Elbit Systems[121] and Leonardo-owned RADA Electronic Industries,[122] Israel has evolved Caterpillar’s D9 bulldozer into automated, remote-commanded core weaponry of the Israeli military,[123] deployed in almost every military activity since 2000, clearing incursion lines, “neutralizing” the territory and killing Palestinians.[124] Since October 2023, Caterpillar equipment has been documented in use carrying out mass demolitions[125] – including of homes,[126] mosques[127] and life-sustaining infrastructure[128] – raid hospitals[129] and crushing Palestinians to death.[130] In 2025, Caterpillar secured a further multi-million dollar contract with Israel.[131]
46. Korean HD Hyundai[132] and its partially-owned subsidiary, Doosan,[133] alongside Swedish Volvo Group[134] and other major heavy machinery manufacturers, have long been linked to destruction of Palestinian property, each supplying equipment through exclusively licensed Israeli dealers.[135] Volvo’s licensee is a United Nations Database-listed company and its business partner in Merkavim Transport Pty Ltd, which produces armoured buses servicing colonies.[136] Since 2000, Volvo machinery has been used to raze Palestinian areas, including in east Jerusalem[137] and Masafer Yatta.[138] For over a decade, HD Hyundai machinery has been used to demolish Palestinian homes[139] and raze farmland, including olive groves.[140] After October 2023, Israel increased use of their equipment in the urban destruction of Gaza,[141] including flattening Rafah[142] and Jabalia,[143] after which the military obscured their logos.[144]
47. These companies have continued supplying the Israeli market despite abundant evidence of Israel’s criminal use of this machinery and repeated calls from human rights groups to sever ties.[145] Passive suppliers become deliberate contributors to a system of displacement.
B. Replacement
48. As corporate actors have contributed to the destruction of Palestinian life in the occupied Palestinian territory, they have also helped construction of what replaces it: building colonies and their infrastructure, extracting and trading materials, energy and agricultural products, bringing visitors to colonies as if to a regular holiday destination. Post-October 2023, these activities have sustained unprecedented growth in the settlement enterprise, with corporate entities continuing to power and profit from the creation of conditions of life calculated to destroy the Palestinian population, including through the near-total shutdown of water, electricity and fuel.
Home on stolen land
49. More than 371 colonies and illegal outposts have been built, powered and traded with by companies facilitating Israel’s replacement of the Indigenous population in the occupied Palestinian territory.[146] In 2024, this intensified after administration of colonies moved from military to civilian government and the Ministry of Construction and Housing budget doubled, including $200 million for colony construction.[147] From November 2023 to October 2024, Israel established 57 new colonies and outposts,[148] with Israeli and international companies supplying machinery, raw materials and logistical support.
50. Caterpillar, HD Hyundai and Volvo excavators and heavy equipment have been used in the construction of illegal colonies for at least 10 years.[149] The German Heidelberg Materials AG,[150] through its subsidiary Hanson Israel, has contributed to pillage millions of tons of dolomite rock from the Nahal Raba quarry on land seized from Palestinian villages in the West Bank.[151] In 2018, Hanson Israel won a public tender to supply materials from that quarry for colony construction,[152] and has since nearly exhausted the quarry, prompting ongoing expansion requests.[153]
51. Various companies contributed to develop roads and public transport infrastructure critical to establishing and expanding the colonies, and connecting them to Israel while excluding and segregating Palestinians.[154] Spanish/Basque Construcciones Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles[155] joined a consortium with a UN Database-listed company to maintain and expand the Jerusalem Light Rail “Red Line” and build the new “Green Line”,[156] at a time when other companies had withdrawn due to international pressure.[157] These lines include 27 kilometres of new tracks and 53 new stations in the West Bank, connecting colonies with West Jerusalem.[158] Doosan and Volvo excavators and machinery have been used,[159] and Heidelberg’s subsidiary supplied materials for a light-rail bridge.[160]
52. Real estate companies sell properties in colonies to Israeli and international buyers. Global real estate group, Keller Williams Realty LLC, through its Israeli franchisee KW Israel,[161] has had branches based in the colonies.[162] In March 2024, Keller Williams, via another franchisee, Home in Israel,[163] ran a real estate roadshow in the US and Canada,[164] co-sponsored by several companies developing and marketing thousands of apartments in colonies.[165]
The grip on natural resources: the incubator of conditions of life calculated to destroy
53. Since 1967, Israel has exercised systematic control over Palestinian natural resources, building infrastructure that integrated its colonies into Israeli national systems and entrenched Palestinian dependency on them.
54. When Israeli Defence Minister Gallant ordered a “complete siege” on Gaza on 9 October 2023, instantly cutting off water, electricity and fuel, this engineered dependency – designed to displace and control life – was operationalized for genocide.[166] Those supplies have never been fully restored, contributing to the deliberate creation of conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of Palestinians as a group.[167] This is also why the grip on resources in the West Bank – tightened after October 2023 – cannot be viewed in isolation from the destruction unfolding in Gaza.[168]
Water
55. Israel forces Palestinians to purchase water sourced from two major aquifers in their own territory, at inflated prices and with intermittent supply.[169] The Israeli national water company Mekorot has a water monopoly in the occupied Palestinian territory.[170] In Gaza, more than 97 percent of water from a coastal aquifer is contaminated, making residents dependent on Mekorot pipelines for most of their drinking water.[171] For at least the first six months post-October 2023, Mekorot ran its Gaza pipelines at 22 percent capacity, leaving areas such as Gaza City without water 95 percent of the time,[172] actively aiding the transformation of water into a tool of genocide.[173]
Electricity, gas and fuel
56. International energy companies have fuelled Israel’s energy-intensive genocide. Reliant on fuel and coal imports,[174] Israel maintains an integrated energy infrastructure serving both Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory, seamlessly powering illegal settlers while controlling and obstructing Palestinian access.[175] Gaza’s power plant provided just 17 percent of Gaza’s electricity, leaving it heavily reliant on fuel for generators and Israeli supply lines.[176] Since October 2023, Israel has cut energy to most of Gaza.[177] Without electricity or fuel, most water pumps,[178] hospitals[179] and transport reached the brink of total collapse;[180] sewage overflows caused polio to resurge;[181] vital desalination plants were forced to shut down.[182]
57. Drummond Company Inc. and Swiss Glencore plc are the primary suppliers of coal for electricity to Israel, originating primarily from Colombia (i.e., 60 per cent of Israel’s imports in 2023).[183] Their respective subsidiaries own the mines and the three ports that have delivered 15 coal shipments to Israel since October 2023,[184] including six shipments after Colombia suspended coal exports to Israel in August 2024.[185] Glencore was also involved in shipments from South Africa,[186] which accounted for 15 per cent of Israeli coal imports in 2023 and continuing in 2024.[187]
58. US Chevron Corporation, in consortium with Israeli NewMedEnergy (a subsidiary of UN Database-listed Delek Group), extracts natural gas from the Leviathan and Tamar fields,[188] paying the Israeli government $453 million in royalties and taxes in 2023.[189] Chevron’s consortium supplies more than 70 per cent of Israeli domestic natural gas consumption.[190] Chevron also profits from its part-ownership of the East Mediterranean Gas (EMG) pipeline, which passes through Palestinian maritime territory,[191] and from gas export sales to Egypt and Jordan.[192] The Gaza naval blockade is connected to Israel securing the Tamar gas supply and EMG pipeline.[193] At a time of increasing brutality, British BP p.l.c. is expanding involvement in the Israeli economy, with exploration licences confirmed in March 2025, which allow BP to explore Palestinian maritime expanses illegally exploited by Israel.[194]
59. BP and Chevron are also the largest contributors to Israeli imports of crude oil, as the major owners of the strategic Azeri Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline[195] and the Kazakh Caspian Pipeline Consortium[196] respectively, as well as their associated oil fields.[197] Each conglomerate effectively supplied eight per cent of Israeli crude oil since October 2023,[198] supplemented by crude oil shipments from Brazilian oil fields, in which Petrobras holds the largest stakes,[199] and military jet fuel.[200] Oil from these companies supplies two refineries in Israel. From Haifa Refinery, two United Nations Database-listed companies supply their petrol stations throughout Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory, including the colonies,[201] and the military via government-awarded contract.[202] From Ashdod Refinery, a subsidiary of UN Database-listed company Paz Retail and Energy Ltd provides jet fuel to the Israeli Air Force operating in Gaza.[203]
60. By supplying Israel with coal, gas, oil and fuel, companies are contributing to civilian infrastructures that Israel uses to entrench permanent annexation and weaponises in the destruction of Palestinian life. The same infrastructure services the Israeli military while it obliterates Gaza, including the network supplying the resources that these companies have provided.[204] The ostensibly civilian nature of such infrastructure does not exonerate a company of responsibility.[205]
Trading the fruits of illegality
Agribusiness
61. Agribusiness has thrived on Israel-led extractivism and land-grabbing – producing goods and technologies serving Israeli settler-colonial interests, expanding market dominance and attracting global investment – while erasing Palestinian food systems and accelerating displacement.[206]
62. Tnuva, Israel’s largest food conglomerate, now majority-owned by Chinese Bright Dairy & Food Co. Ltd,[207] has fuelled and benefitted from land dispossession. Tnuva’s chairman recognized that “agriculture … in general and dairy farming in particular are a strategic resource and a significant pillar in the settlement enterprise”.[208] Israel has used Kibbutzim and agricultural outposts to seize Palestinian land and replace Palestinians.[209] Companies like Tnuva help by sourcing products from these colonies,[210] then exploit the resulting captive Palestinian market[211] to build market dominance.[212] Palestinian dependence on the Israeli dairy industry has increased 160 percent in the decade following Israel’s estimated $43 million destruction of Gaza’s dairy industry in 2014.[213] Tnuva has absorbed the loss of the Gaza market,[214] failing to use its substantial leverage to influence the situation.
63. Netafim, a global leader in drip irrigation technology, now 80 percent owned by Mexico’s Orbia Advance Corporation,[215] has designed its agri-tech in concert with Israel’s expansion imperatives.[216] While maintaining a global image of sustainability,[217] Netafim technology has enabled intensive exploitation of water and land in the West Bank,[218] further depleting Palestinian natural resources, while being refined in collaboration with Israeli military-tech firms.[219] In the Jordan Valley, Netafim-aided irrigation systems have facilitated Israeli crop expansion, while Palestinian farmers – denied water and with 93 per cent unirrigated land[220] – are pushed out, unable to compete with Israeli production.[221] Furthermore, such irrigation techniques threaten to exhaust the Jordan River and Dead Sea.[222]
64. Companies such as Tnuva and Netafim continue to manufacture food security for Israelis,[223] while the food system to which they belong causes food insecurity – and even famine – for others. Netafim brands itself as a sustainable innovator, while perfecting age-old techniques of colonial exploitation.
Global retail
65. Israeli products, including those from colonies, flood global markets via major retailers,[224] often with no scrutiny. To dodge growing backlash, companies mask origin through misleading labels, barcodes and supply chain mixing, effectively making occupation shelf-ready.[225]
66. Global logistics giants like A.P. Moller – Maersk A/S are integral to this ecosystem, shipping goods from illegal settlements and UN database-listed companies straight to the US[226] and other markets.
67. In many countries, no distinction is made between products from Israel and those from its colonies. Even in the EU, where labeling is required,[227] these goods are still allowed on the market, the responsibility put on uninformed consumers.[228] Given the illegality of the colonies under international law, these products should not be traded at all.
68. Supermarket chains,[229] including many listed on the UN Database, and e-commerce platforms like Amazon.com[230] operate directly in colonies, sustaining their economy, enabling expansion and participating in apartheid through discriminatory service delivery.
Occupation Tourism
69. Major online travel platforms used by millions to e-reserve accommodation, profit from the occupation by selling tourism that sustains the colonies, excludes Palestinians, promotes settler narratives and legitimizes annexation.
70. Booking Holdings Inc. and Airbnb, Inc. let properties and hotel rooms in Israeli colonies. Booking.com has more than doubled its listings – from 26 in 2018[231] to 70 by May 2023[232] – and tripled its east Jerusalem listings to 39 in the year post-October 2023.[233] Airbnb has also amplified its colonial profiteering, growing from 139 listings in 2016[234] to 350 in 2025,[235] collecting up to 23 percent commission.[236] These listings are linked with restricting Palestinian access to land and endangering nearby villages.[237] In Tekoa, Airbnb enables settler promotion of a “warm and loving community,”[238] whitewashing settler violence against the neighbouring Palestinian village of Tuqu’.[239]
71. Booking.com and Airbnb have been on the UN Database since 2020. Booking.com may label properties as “Palestinian territory, Israeli settlement”, but it continues to profit from the colonies and faces criminal complaints in the Netherlands for laundering proceeds.[240] Airbnb briefly delisted illegal colony properties in 2018[241] but reversed course under pressure,[242] now donating profits to “humanitarian” causes and converting colonial profiteering into humanitarian-washing.[243]
C. Enablers
72. A list of enablers – financial, research, legal, consulting, media and advertising firms[244] – long involved in sustaining the settler-colonial occupation through knowledge, narratives, skills and investment, have continued to support, profit from and normalize an economy operating in genocidal mode. This section focuses just on two key enablers: the financial and academic sectors.
Financing the violations
73. The financial sector channels critical funding to both State and corporate actors behind Israel’s occupation and apartheid, despite many companies in the sector committing to the Principles for Responsible Investment[245] and the United Nations Global Compact.[246]
74. As the main source of finance for Israel’s State budget, treasury bonds have played a critical role in funding the ongoing assault on Gaza. From 2022 to 2024, the Israeli military budget grew from 4.2 per cent to 8.3 per cent of GDP, driving the public budget into a 6.8 per cent deficit.[247] Israel funded this ballooning budget by increasing its bond issuance, including $8 billion in March 2024[248] and $5 billion in February 2025,[249] alongside issuances on its domestic shekel market.[250] Some of the world’s largest banks, including BNP Paribas[251] and Barclays,[252] stepped in to boost market confidence by underwriting these international and domestic treasury bonds, allowing Israel to contain the interest rate premium, despite a credit downgrade.[253] Asset management firms – including Blackrock ($68 million), Vanguard ($546 million) and Allianz’s asset management subsidiary PIMCO ($960 million)[254] – were among at least 400 investors from 36 countries who purchased them.[255] Meanwhile, the Development Corporation for Israel (DCI) (i.e., Israel Bonds)[256] provides a bond solicitation service for the Israeli government for overseas private individuals and other investors.[257] DCI tripled its annual bond sales to funnel nearly $5 billion to Israel since October 2023,[258] while offering investors the option of sending the return on bond investments into charitable organizations supporting the Israeli military[259] and the colonies.[260]
75. These financial entities channel billions of dollars into treasury bonds and companies directly involved in Israel’s occupation and genocide. Blackrock (and its subsidiary, iShares[261]) and Vanguard are among the largest institutional investors in many companies, holding these shares for distribution among their indexes of mutual funds and electronically traded funds (ETFs). Blackrock is the second largest institutional investor in Palantir (8.6 per cent), Microsoft (7.8 per cent), Amazon.com (6.6 per cent), Alphabet (6.6 per cent) and IBM (8.6 per cent), and third largest in Lockheed Martin (7.2 per cent) and Caterpillar (7.5 per cent); Vanguard is the largest institutional investor in Caterpillar (9.8 per cent), Chevron (8.9 per cent) and Palantir (9.1 per cent), and second largest in Lockheed Martin (9.2 per cent) and Elbit Systems (2.0 per cent).[262] Through their asset management, while implicating universities, pension funds and ordinary people who passively invest their savings through the purchase of their funds and ETFs.[263] For their investment decisions, these companies often rely on benchmark indices, such as FTSE All-World ex-US, J.P. MORGAN $ EM CORP BOND UCITS and MSCI ACWI UCITS,[264] which are developed by financial services firms.
76. Global insurance companies, including Allianz and AXA, also invest large sums in shares and bonds implicated in the occupation and genocide, partly as capital reserves for policyholder claims and regulatory requirements, but primarily to generate returns. Allianz holds at least $7.3 billion[265] and AXA, despite some divestment decisions,[266] still invests at least $4.09 billion[267] in tracked companies named in this report. Their insurance policies also underwrite the risks other companies necessarily take when operating in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory, thus enabling the commission of human rights abuses[268] and “de-risking” their operational environment.[269]
77. Sovereign wealth and pension funds are also significant financiers. The world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, the Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG), claims it has the “world’s most comprehensive ethical guidelines”.[270] After October 2023, GPFG increased its investment in Israeli companies by 32 per cent to $1.9 billion. By the end of 2024, the GPFG had $121.5 billion – 6.9 per cent of its total value – invested in companies named in this report alone.[271] The Caisse de Dépôt et Placement du Québec, which manages CA$473.3 billion ($328.9 billion)[272] in pension funds of six million Canadians, has almost CA$9.6 billion ($6.67 billion) invested in the companies named in this report,[273] despite its ethical investment and human rights policy.[274] In 2023–2024, it almost tripled investment in Lockheed Martin, quadrupled investment in Caterpillar and increased 10-fold the investment in HD Hyundai.[275]
78. The financial sector also allows companies to access funds through loans and by underwriting their debts so they can sell it on the private bond market. From 2021 to 2023, BNP Paribas was a top European financier of the weapons industry supplying Israel, providing $410 million in loans to Leonardo, among others,[276] alongside $5.2 billion in loans and underwriting for United Nations Database-listed companies.[277] Similarly, in 2024, Barclays provided $2 billion in loans and underwriting to United Nations Database-listed companies,[278] $862 million to Lockheed Martin and $228 million to Leonardo.[279]
79. This direct investment is buttressed by the choice of financial advisory companies and responsible investment associations to not consider human rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territory in their assessment of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investing.[280] This allows responsible/ethical investment funds to remain ESG compliant despite investing in Israeli government bonds and in shares of companies involved in violations in the occupied Palestinian territory.[281]
80. This entire environment has facilitated a record 179 per cent increase in $-equivalent equity prices of the companies listed in the Tel Aviv stock exchange since the start of the assault on Gaza, translating into a $157.9 billion gain.[282]
81. Faith-based charities have also become key financial enablers of illegal projects, including in the occupied Palestinian territory, often receiving tax deductions abroad despite strict regulatory charitable frameworks.[283] The Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF) and its 20+ affiliates fund settler expansion and military-linked projects.[284] Since October 2023, platforms such as Israel Gives have enabled tax-deductible crowdfunding in 32 countries for Israeli military units and settlers.[285] United States-based Christian Friends of Israeli Communities,[286] Dutch Christians for Israel[287] and global affiliates,[288] sent over $12.25 million in 2023[289] to various projects that support colonies, including some that train extremist settlers.[290]
Knowledge production and violation legitimization
82. In Israel, universities – particularly law schools,[291] archaeology[292] and Middle Eastern studies departments[293] – contribute to the ideological scaffolding of apartheid, cultivating State-aligned narratives,[294] erasing Palestinian history and justifying occupation practices.[295] Meanwhile, science and technology departments serve as research and development hubs for collaborations between the Israeli military and arms contractors, including Elbit Systems, IAI, IBM and Lockheed Martin, and so contribute to producing the tools for surveillance, crowd control, urban warfare, facial recognition and targeted killing, tools that are effectively tested on Palestinians.[296]
83. Leading universities, especially from the Global Minority, partner with Israeli institutions in areas directly harming Palestinians. At MIT, labs conduct weapons and surveillance research funded by the Israeli Ministry of Defense (IMOD) – the only foreign military financing MIT research.[297] Notable IMOD-projects include drone swarm control[298] – a distinct feature of the Israeli assault on Gaza since October 2023 – pursuit algorithms,[299] and underwater surveillance.[300] From 2019 to 2024, MIT managed a Lockheed Martin Seed Fund connecting students to teams in Israel.[301] From 2017 to 2025, Elbit Systems paid for membership to MIT’s Industrial Liaison Program, enabling access to research and talent.[302]
84. The European Commission (EC)’s Horizon Europe programme actively facilitates collaboration with Israeli institutions, including those complicit in apartheid and genocide. Since 2014, the EC has granted over €2.12 billion ($2.4 billion) to Israeli entities,[303] including the Ministry of Defense,[304] while European academic institutions both benefit from and reinforce this entanglement. The Technical University of Munich (TUM) receives €198.5 million ($218 million) in EC Horizon funding,[305] including €11.47 million ($12.6 million) for 22 collaborations with Israeli partners, military and tech firms.[306] TUM and IAI receive €792,795.75 ($868,416) to co-develop green hydrogen refuelling,[307] technology relevant to IAI military drones used in Gaza.[308] TUM partners with IBM Israel – which runs the discriminatory Israeli Population Registry – on cloud and AI systems, as part of IBM Israel’s €7.02 million ($7.71 million) Horizon funding.[309] TUM also collaborates on a €10.76 million ($11.71 million) project called “seamless urban mobility” that includes the Municipality of Jerusalem,[310] a city entrenching annexation through urban transportation. It is impossible to disentangle the expertise Israeli partners contribute to these partnerships from that gained and used in violations to which they are connected.
85. Many universities have upheld ties with Israel despite the post-October 2023 escalation. One of many British examples,[311] the University of Edinburgh holds nearly £25.5 million ($31.72 million) (2.5 per cent of its endowment) in four tech giants – Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and IBM – central to Israel’s surveillance apparatus and the ongoing Gaza destruction.[312] With both direct and indexed investments, it ranks among the UK’s most financially entangled institutions. The University also partners with firms aiding Israeli military operations, including Leonardo S.p.A.[313] and Ben Gurion University via an AI and Data Science Lab,[314] sharing research that directly links it with assaults on Palestinians.
86. This analysis only scratches the surface of the information received by the Special Rapporteur, who acknowledges the vital work of students and staff in holding universities to account. It casts a new light onto global crackdowns on campus protesters: shielding Israel and protecting institutional financial interests appears a more probable motivation than fighting alleged antisemitism.[315]
Conclusions
87. While life in Gaza is being obliterated and the West Bank is under escalating assault, this report shows why Israel’s genocide continues: because it is lucrative for many. By shedding light on the political economy of an occupation turned genocidal, the report reveals how the forever-occupation has become the ideal testing ground for arms manufacturers and Big Tech – providing boundless supply and demand, little oversight, and zero accountability – while investors and private and public institutions profit freely. Too many influential corporate entities remain inextricably financially bound to Israel’s apartheid and militarism.
88. Post-October 2023, when the Israeli defence budget doubled, and at a time of falling demand, production and consumer confidence, an international network of corporations has propped up the Israeli economy. Blackrock and Vanguard rank among the largest investors in arms companies pivotal to Israel’s genocidal arsenal. Major global banks have underwritten Israeli treasury bonds, which have bankrolled the devastation, and the largest sovereign wealth and pension funds invested public and private savings in the genocidal economy, all the while claiming to respect ethical guidelines.
89. Arms companies have turned over near record profits by equipping Israel with cutting-edge weaponry that has obliterated a virtually defenceless civilian population. The machinery of global construction equipment giants has been instrumental in razing Gaza to the ground, preventing the return and reconstitution of Palestinian life. Extractive energy and mining conglomerates, while providing sources of civilian energy, have fuelled Israel’s military and energy infrastructures – both used to create conditions of life calculated to destroy the Palestinian people.
90. And while the genocide rages on, the inexorable process of violent annexation continues. Agribusiness still sustains expansion of the settlement enterprise. The largest online tourism platforms continue normalizing the illegality of Israeli colonies. Global supermarkets continue to stock Israeli settlement products. And universities worldwide, under the guise of research neutrality, continue to profit from an economy now operating in genocidal mode. Indeed, they are structurally dependent on settler-colonial collaborations and funding.
91. Business continues as usual, but nothing about this system, in which businesses are integral, is neutral. The enduring ideological, political and economic engine of racial capitalism has transformed Israel’s displacement-replacement economy of occupation into an economy of genocide. This is a “joint criminal enterprise”,[316] where the acts of one ultimately contribute to a whole economy that drives, supplies and enables this genocide.
92. The entities named in the report constitute a fraction of a much deeper structure of corporate involvement, profiteering from and enabling violations and crimes in the occupied Palestinian territory. Had they exercised due diligence, corporate entities would have ceased involvement with Israel long ago. Today, the demand for accountability is all the more urgent: any investment sustains a system of serious international crimes.
93. Business and human rights obligations cannot be isolated from Israel’s illegal settler-colonial enterprise in the occupied Palestinian territory, which now functions as a genocidal machine, despite the ICJ having ordered that it be fully and unconditionally dismantled. Corporate relations with Israel must cease until the occupation and apartheid end, and reparations are made. The corporate sector, including its executives, must be held to account, as a necessary step towards ending the genocide and disassembling the global system of racialized capitalism that underpins it.
Recommendations
94. The Special Rapporteur urges Member States:
(a) To impose sanctions and a full arms embargo on Israel, including all existing agreements and dual-use items such as technology and civilian heavy machinery;
(b) To suspend/prevent all trade agreements and investment relations, – and impose sanctions, including asset freezes, on entities and individuals involved in activities that may endanger the Palestinians;
(c) To enforce accountability, ensuring that corporate entities face legal consequences for their involvement in serious violations of international law.
95. The Special Rapporteur urges corporate entities:
(a) To promptly cease all business activities and terminate relationships directly linked with, contributing to and causing human rights violations and international crimes against the Palestinian people, in accordance with international corporate responsibilities and the law of self-determination;
(b) To pay reparations to the Palestinian people, including in the form of an apartheid wealth tax along the lines of post-Apartheid South Africa.
96. The Special Rapporteur urges the International Criminal Court and national judiciaries to investigate and prosecute corporate executives and/or corporate entities for their part in the commission of international crimes and laundering of the proceeds from those crimes.
97. The Special Rapporteur urges the United Nations:
(a) To comply with the International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion of 2024;
(b) To include all entities involved in Israeli unlawful occupation in the United Nations database (to be accessible on the OHCHR website).
98. The Special Rapporteur urges trade Unions, lawyers, civil society and ordinary citizens to press for boycotts, divestments, sanctions, justice for Palestine and accountability at international and domestic levels; together we can end these unspeakable crimes.
99. This report is written at the cusp of a profound and tumultuous transformation. Globally witnessed atrocities require urgent accountability and justice, which demands diplomatic, economic, and legal action against those who have maintained and profited from an economy of occupation turned genocidal. What comes next, depends on all of us.
________________________________________
