UN identifies 214 firms linked to Israeli settlements

UN identifies 214 firms linked to Israeli settlements

The United Nations on Friday released a fresh update of its database of companies with activities in Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories, listing 214 firms from 11 countries. Since last year’s update, the UN rights office added an additional 61 companies to the database and removed five companies. But major firms like Airbnb, Booking.com, Motorola Solutions and TripAdviser remained on the list. The report, which was harshly criticised by Israel, served as a “reminder to companies that they have human rights responsibilities”, UN rights chief Volker Turk said in a statement. Firms, he said, “are expected to conduct due diligence to ensure that they do not become involved in human rights violations or abuses”. While most of the companies were based in Israel, others were based in Canada, China, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States. There were two Spanish companies removed from the database since last year, along with one each from Canada, Israel and Portugal. The list was first produced in 2020 after a UN Human Rights Council resolution called for a database of firms that profited from business in illegally occupied Palestinian territory. The UN rights office was asked to list companies found to be taking part in any of 10 activities, including construction, surveillance, demolitions and destruction of agricultural land in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Despite a requirement for the database to be updated annually, it has been revised just twice before, in 2023 and 2025. The list is not exhaustive. It only reviews companies about which it received submissions during set timeframes, the last of which closed in June 2024. In all, it has received submissions about 596 companies, of which it has so far reviewed 381. Israel, which has been harshly critical of the database from the start, slammed it again Friday as “a distorted mechanism… established solely to persecute the Jewish state”. The country’s mission to the UN in Geneva charged that it was “a political tool” used by the rights office “to advance a smear campaign against business enterprises that committed no wrongdoing”. Israel has controlled the West Bank since 1967 in an occupation considered illegal under international law.