
Francesca Albanese: Tech firms profiting from Israeli 'economy of genocide'
UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese's call for action comes in a scathing new report in which she names over 60 companies, including major technology firms like Google, Amazon and Microsoft, alleging their involvement in what she calls "the transformation of Israel's economy of occupation to an economy of genocide".
"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 . . . while investors and private and public institutions profit freely," Albanese writes in the report.
"Too many influential corporate entities remain inextricably financially bound to Israel's apartheid and militarism."
The detailed, 24-page report, which is set to be presented to the UN Human Rights Council on Thursday, identifies dozens of corporate actors, including those involved in the arms, technology, construction and energy sectors, which it says are complicit.
UN Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese speaking in The Hague in February 2025 (Robin Utrecht/AFP)

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Middle East Eye
an hour ago
- Middle East Eye
Egypt asks US to pressure Libya's Haftar not to back Turkey maritime deal
Egypt has asked the United States to intervene to prevent Libya's eastern parliament from ratifying a maritime deal with Turkey, multiple regional officials have told Middle East Eye. An Egyptian official told MEE on Wednesday that Cairo is concerned that if Libya's eastern parliament ratifies the deal, initially inked by eastern Libya's rival western government in 2019, it could spark tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean at a time when Egypt grapples with the fallout from the wars in Gaza and Sudan. One Egyptian official and one official in the region told MEE that Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty raised the topic of US intervention in a phone call with Massad Boulos, the US's senior adviser on Africa, last month. They said that Boulos said he would call Khalifa Haftar, the de-facto ruler of eastern Libya, to discuss the issue. MEE reached out to the State Department for detailed information on what was discussed in the call but did not receive a response by time of publication. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Several Libyan media outlets have reported that the country's eastern parliament could ratify the 2019 maritime agreement in the coming weeks, which would recognise Turkey's claim to an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) over a wide-swath of the Eastern Mediterranean. Libya's eastern parliament, based in Tobruk, is de-facto controlled by Haftar who has been supported by various regional actors at different times since 2011, including the United Arab Emirates, the US, Egypt, France and Russia. Trump envoy Massad Boulos to visit Libya amid rising tensions, sources say Read More » The 81-year-old dual Libyan-US citizen wields considerable power in eastern Libya and in mid-2019 launched a failed attempt to topple the country's UN-recognised government in Tripoli. At the time, the UN-recognised government, which counts Turkey as its major backer, signed the maritime demarcation agreement with Ankara which sparked anger from Greece and other regional actors over claims they were excluded. Greece countered the deal by signing their own with Egypt. Libya's eastern parliament initially opposed the deal, but in recent months, and despite intensive lobbying by Athens and Cairo, Haftar appears to be close to endorsing the pact. Greece's Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis is expected to travel to Benghazi and Tripoli this week to address the maritime dispute, one of the regional sources told MEE. Meanwhile, the sources told MEE that Cairo was wary of a change in the status quo on the maritime dispute and was actively aiming to secure reliable gas supplies. In June, Libya's National Oil Company based in Tripoli signed an agreement with Turkey's state oil company TPAO to conduct surveys for oil in four maritime blocs that the Egyptian official said may infringe on Egypt's EEZ. Old fault lines dissipate Eastern Libya's pivot on the issue reflects a broader shift in the region where the old ideological fault-lines that defined conflicts after the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings are dissipating. After sending arms, mercenaries and soldiers to combat Haftar's army, Turkey has shown a new willingness to work with its former foe. Exclusive: Greece to lobby Egypt against Haftar endorsing Turkey-Libya maritime deal Read More » The Turkish Ministry of Defence hosted three military delegations from Haftar's self-styled Libya National Army (LNA) in June, and Haftar's youngest son, Saddam, visited Ankara in May after visiting Qatar earlier this year. Sources told MEE that Saddam Haftar's growing contacts with Ankara, including in the military sphere, had irked Egypt. An Egyptian official and a Libyan official said that Egypt believed Saddam was responsible for a cross-border raid into Sudan and that his fighters had helped the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) against the Sudanese military. Although Egypt and Turkey are on opposing sides in Libya, they both back the Sudanese army in its fight against the UAE-backed RSF. Egypt has deep interests in Libya and shares a long and porous 1,115km long border with the country's east. Earlier this week, Sisi hosted Khalifa and Saddam Haftar in El Alamein to discuss border security. Whilst Libya remains bifurcated with clashes between rival militias, generally there has been no return to major fighting. The Trump administration enjoys good ties to the Haftar family and during his first term in office, US President Donald Trump held a phone call with Haftar during the height of fighting in the country. Meanwhile, MEE previously revealed that Saddam met Boulos in Washington DC earlier this year and also discussed regional security with senior US intelligence officers.

Middle East Eye
2 hours ago
- Middle East Eye
Srebrenica survivors draw parallels with Gaza 30 years after massacre
Ahmed Hrustanovic is a 39-year-old imam from Srebrenica, a town in Bosnia Herzegovina that became notorious after at least 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were summarily executed by Serb forces in July 1995. He was nine at the time, and living in an accommodation centre for displaced people near the city of Tuzla, having been deported from Srebrenica in 1993 with his mother and sister. But the vast majority of Ahmed's family, including his father, remained in Srebrenica. He recalls the fear everyone felt for their loved ones upon hearing the news that Srebrenica had fallen to Serb forces. 'It was clear to us all what was about to happen to our loved ones,' he said, speaking to Middle East Eye at the mosque in the centre of the town where he works. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Thirty years on from the killings, widely branded a genocide, Hrustanovic sees parallels in Israel's attack on Gaza - also widely assessed by genocide scholars to be a genocide. 'We were in that situation where they [Serb and Croat forces] were attacking from all sides, and they wouldn't let us defend ourselves," he said, referring to the international community. 'Unfortunately, we're witnesses that the international community does not exist the way we're used to - that it would stand on the side of justice, democracy. Democracy no longer exists in the world; you can see that it's only the law of the strongest that counts,' he told MEE. Fadila Efendic, the 84-year-old president of the Mothers of Srebrenica association, always thought that what took place at Srebrenica would be the last of its kind. 'But politics are terrible,' she told Middle East Eye from her house in Potocari, the village in Srebrenica that now hosts a memorial centre for the killings. 'The interests of great powers are paid for by small people with their lives. [The great powers] want to rule the world." Ahmed Hrustanovic in front of his mosque in Srebrenica, Bosnia (Mersih Agadzo/MEE) Just as the international community did not react in Bosnia, they're also not responding to the genocide in Gaza, she said. 'They work against [ordinary] people just for the interests of [annexing] territory - killing people and expelling them. It won't end well,' she said. Efendic recalled the heavy shooting and shelling from all sides by Serb forces on 11 July 1995; it was difficult just to reach the UN base in Potocari alive and seek refuge. People were panicking and no one knew what to do. 'It was the so-called 'protected zone', but every day they were shelling. What did [the UN] protect? They only protected Serbs. They handed us over to them to be killed,' she said. Efendic recalled how quickly Serb forces were killing people, while Dutch UN troops did not intervene to stop them, something that would lead to an apology from the Netherlands government in July 2022. 'The ones that survived worked as translators. The medics working in the emergency - all the men were killed. Whoever [from the men] came to Potocari did not survive. One moment you see the man, you're talking to him. The next moment, you turn around and ask where he is, they say: 'They took him, they killed him.'' 'Most heinous' crimes From 1992 until 1995, Bosnia was ripped apart as different communities fought to carve out ethnic enclaves, often with the support of neighbouring states. In September 1991 the UN Security Council had already imposed an arms embargo on the nations of the former Yugoslavia, including Bosnia, to prevent violence from escalating. 'Today that's the only language that's understood in the world - the language of force' - Ahmed Hrustanovic, Imam But, in reality, the embargo left Bosnia's population defenceless and unprepared, while Bosnian Serb forces - including paramilitaries from Serbia - were already heavily armed, having inherited the weaponry of the Yugoslav army, the fourth strongest army in Europe at the time. On 11 July 1995, Serb atrocities culminated in a genocide at Srebrenica. That day, Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic - now a convicted war criminal, jailed for life in The Hague - announced to the TV cameras while walking down the street: 'Here we are … in Serb Srebrenica. On the eve of yet another Serb holiday, we give this town to the Serb people as a gift. 'The time has come to take revenge on the Turks in this region,' he said, referring to Muslims who had long been seen by Serbian nationalists as synonymous with the former power. The torture and mass killings of Bosnian Muslim civilians that ensued that week under Mladic's command were later described by presiding judge Alphons Orie at the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague as 'among the most heinous known to humankind'. Western media enabling Gaza genocide and rewriting history, say experts Read More » In the ensuing days, as buses of deported women and children arrived in Dubrave or Kladanj near Tuzla, in free territory, Hrustanovic's mother would travel the 40km every day to ask survivors if anyone knew anything about her family's whereabouts. There was a column of men and boys who tried to escape through the surrounding forest and trek the difficult journey on foot to Tuzla, more than 100km away, but it was only a small minority that survived, as they were exposed to constant shelling and ambushes by Serb forces and police. 'As each day passed, there was less and less hope that they would arrive alive,' Hrustanovic said. It wasn't until 2007 that Hrustanovic received a call from the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), informing him that the skeletal remains of his father, Rifet, and one of his uncles had been found. Rifet's remains were discovered in four separate mass graves, as Serb forces had dug out the graves following execution and transferred the bodies with bulldozers to multiple sites, in an attempt to hide the killings. Hrustanovic listed more of his family members found over the years - his grandfathers' bodies were found whole, and Serb forces caught one of his uncles, only 16 at the time, and killed him on the spot just above the memorial centre in Potocari. In total, Serb forces had killed more than 50 members of his family. 'Of course international court rulings and [UN] resolutions make it easier to tell our story of genocide, but it's not a guarantee that another genocide won't happen here again,' he said. 'That's always an option - unless you're a strong nation militarily, and you have an army that will protect you. Today, that's the only language that's understood in the world - the language of force… no one understands anything other than that. 'That's how it's been throughout history; examples of tolerance are few.' 'Interests of great powers' In 1998 the remains of Efendic's husband were found without a skull in a secondary mass grave. A decade later, two bones of her son's leg were found in a village by Zvornik, 53km north of Srebrenica. Unable to find any more remains, she buried his two bones in 2013 in the memorial cemetery next to her husband. The genocide is considered one of the UN's most shameful failures. Kofi Annan, then under-secretary-general for peacekeeping, later said that Srebrenica would haunt the UN's history. A decade ago, former Dutch Defence Minister Joris Voorhoeve accused the US, UK and France of reaching a secret deal with the Serbs to not conduct air attacks, even though this was promised to the UN peacekeepers. In 2017 the ICTY sentenced Mladic to life in prison, for genocide and war crimes committed in Bosnia in the early 1990s. Fadila Efendic at her home in Potocari, Srebrenica (Mersih Agadzo/MEE) But genocide denial and glorification of convicted war criminals is still common in Serb society, politics and media, both in the Bosnian enclave of Republika Srpska and in Serbia itself. For Hrustanovic, the dream was always to return home to Srebrenica. He did so in 2014 and now lives there with his wife and five children. From a pre-war population of 30,000, there are now only around 2,000 Bosnian Muslims living in the town. But from all the 'ethnically cleansed' towns by the Serbian border, from Bijeljina in the north down to Foca in the south, Srebrenica still has the most Bosnian Muslim children, he said. 'The killing of an innocent man, you can feel it in the air. Wherever innocent people were killed, no one can build a new life there and erase what happened," he said. "That's impossible - these hills felt the pain; these hills are full of blood, and they will always testify about what happened.' Following July 1995, the world pledged 'never again', but Israel's war on Gaza now continues for the 22nd month, with more than 56,000 people killed, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. In March 2024, US President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner said Gaza's 'waterfront could be very valuable' and that he would do his best to move local Palestinians from there 'and then clean it up'. Trump echoed this sentiment, saying that Gaza could become 'the Riviera of the Middle East'. For Hrustanovic, this is simply 'not the nature of things. You can't kill innocent people, exhaust them and then build over their graves and destroyed homes a paradise of your own, with your own houses, mansions, and expect to be happy,' he said. 'No universal order can tolerate that, no normal human reason can stand it. We really sympathise with our brothers in Gaza and Palestine, and wherever innocent people are being killed.'


TAG 91.1
5 hours ago
- TAG 91.1
UAE hosts high-level UN meeting on advancing peace and security agenda
The UAE hosted a high-level UN meeting on 'Advancing the Tolerance, Peace, and Security (TPS) Agenda', in recognition of the second anniversary of the unanimous adoption of Resolution 2686. The event brought together UN officials, member states and civil society to strengthen implementation and move the agenda forward across the UN system. In a video statement shared during the meeting, UAE Minister of State Noura Al Kaabi also highlighted the launch of the TPS series, a global programme focused on expert round tables with a flagship publication to pave the way forward. 'For the United Arab Emirates, tolerance is not merely a virtue or aspiration; it's a prerequisite for global peace and security. Join us in turning tolerance into action. For peace, for security, and for all.' -HE @NouraAlKaabi, Minister of State — UAE Mission to the UN (@UAEMissionToUN) July 1, 2025 The UAE and the UK led the resolution 2686 back in 2023 on tolerance, peace and security. The unanimously adopted resolution recognised that hate speech, racism, racial discrimination, intolerance, gender discrimination and acts of extremism can contribute to conflict, with member states condemning such actions. The resolution also requested UN peacekeeping and special political missions' monitoring of hate speech, racism and acts of extremism that might impact peace and security. 'We need to develop a shared understanding of what TPS is and how it can be usefully applied in practice," stated Mohamed Abushahab, Permanent Representative of the UAE to the UN, as he emphasized the importance of tolerance in developing innovation and strength.