UN report highlights the economic impact of the occupation of Palestine

IOL News

2 days ago

The findings, presented by Francesca Albanese - the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian - during a media briefing in Geneva on Thursday, accuse these corporations of failing to uphold their legal responsibilities, thereby facilitating a system of exploitative occupation.
The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange has seen a staggering increase of over 200% since the onset of the occupation of Palestine nearly two years ago, according to a damning new report from Francesca Albanese, the United Nations' Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories.
Published on Thursday and aptly titled 'From economy of occupation to economy of genocide,' Albanese's report highlights how the very fabric of the global economy has intertwined with the devastation faced by Palestinians, particularly in the face of the ongoing conflict.
'In the past 21 months, while Israel's genocide has devastated Palestinian lives and landscapes, the Tel Aviv stock exchange soared by 213%, amassing $225.7 billion in market gains—including $67.8bn in the past month alone. For some, genocide is profitable,' Albanese said.
'In many respects, I could have written this report two years ago, and it would have been a fair exposure of the economy of the occupation made of two pillars; a pillar of displacement, a pillar of replacement, held together by an ecosystem of enablers, from financial actors to institutional knowledge production actors, like universities, and even charities.'
Albanese named defense giants Lockheed Martin, RTX Corporation, General Dynamics, BAE Systems and Boeing for their sale of weapons to Israel.
She singled out Caterpillar, Hyundai and Volvo for selling engineering equipment used to demolish Palestinian homes and the construction of illegal colonies for at least 10 years.
Also mentioned is German Heidelberg Materials AG through its subsidiary Hanson Israel for allegedly contributing to the pillage of millions of tons of dolomite rock from the Nahal Raba quarry on land seized from Palestinian villages in the West Bank.
The report said the Spanish/Basque Construcciones Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles joined a consortium to maintain and expand the Jerusalem Light Rail Red Line and build the new Green Line, at a time when other companies had withdrawn owing to international pressure.
The global real estate group, Keller Williams Realty LLC, through its Israeli franchisee KW Israel, was named among real estate companies that sell properties in colonies to Israeli and international buyers.
Global tech giants Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, IBM and Palantir were also named for supplying AI platforms, analytics and cloud infrastructure that aid Israeli intelligence gathering.
The report pointed at major banks — Bank of America, BlackRock, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase and Barclays — for investing in Israeli bonds, allowing Israel to wage war.
It said the US-based Chevron Corporation, in consortium with Israeli NewMed Energy, extracts natural gas from the Leviathan and Tamar fields.
The report said Chevron's consortium supplies more than 70% of Israeli energy consumption and also profits from its part-ownership of the East Mediterranean Gas pipeline, which passes through Palestinian maritime territory, and from gas export sales to Egypt and Jordan.
The report also said Netafim, a global leader in drip irrigation technology, now 80% owned by the Mexican company Orbia Advance Corporation, has designed its agritech in concert with the expansion imperatives of Israel.
It said global logistics giants like A.P. Moller – Maersk A/S were integral to this ecosystem; for years they have shipped goods from the colonies and OHCHR database-listed companies straight to the US and other markets.
The report said major online travel platforms, used by millions to reserve accommodation, profit from the occupation by selling tourism that sustains the colonies, excludes Palestinians, promotes settler narratives and legitimizes annexation.
It said Booking Holdings Inc. and Airbnb, Inc. list properties and hotel rooms in Israeli colonies. Booking.com has more than doubled its listings in the West Bank – from 26 in 2018 to 70 by May 2023 – and tripled its East Jerusalem listings to 39 in the year post October 2023.
Airbnb has also amplified its colonial profiteering, growing from 139 listings in 2016 to 350 in 2025, collecting up to 23% commission. It said these listings were linked with restricting Palestinian access to land and endangering nearby villages.
'My report exposes a system, something that is so structural and so widespread and so systemic that there is no possibility to fix it and redress it. It needs to be dismantled,' Albanese said.
'When sanctions were imposed on apartheid South Africa, was it because of the crimes and the violence and the racism and the discrimination and the apartheid that South Africa was imposing on its non-white population or for just what South Africa was doing in the Bantustans?'
In a sharp rebuttal, Maram Stern, executive vice president of the World Jewish Congress, denounced Albanese's report as biased and politicised, claiming it undermined Israel's legitimacy and distorted the realities on the ground.
'Ms. Albanese's report is yet another example of her repeated misuse of her mandate to advance a political agenda rather than to uphold the universal principles of human rights,' Stern said in a statement.
'Particularly outrageous is the targeting of companies operating within Israel's internationally recognized borders, which is a clear attempt to delegitimize the very existence of the Jewish state under the guise of human rights.'
BUSINESS REPORT