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UN human rights expert Francesca Albanese has released a report naming dozens of companies that bear complicity in Israel’s genocide and apartheid in Palestine, aiming to show how companies have built Israel’s occupation into a sprawling, profitable industry.
In her report released Monday, Albanese names over 60 companies, including numerous U.S.-based companies, for their role in advancing Israel’s military campaign, settlement building, and mass forced displacement.
These companies are either directly providing goods used to demolish Palestinian homes and kill Palestinian people, like Caterpillar Inc., or Lockheed Martin; or supporting Israel through other means, like holding real estate sales or investing in companies who provide direct support, like Keller Williams Realty LLC or BlackRock, respectively.
Big Tech is especially involved, with Albanese calling out some of the largest tech companies in the U.S. for providing logistical support for Israel, like Amazon and Alphabet, Google’s parent company.
The report follows a call for input for complicity with Israel within the private sector from Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories. Albanese writes that she received hundreds of submissions, and has built a database of 1,000 corporate entities who are “implicated in human rights violations and international crimes in the occupied Palestinian territory,” she writes.
These submissions build upon a previously established database of business enterprises linked to Israeli settlements gathered by the UN human rights office, which was last updated in June 2023, prior to the Gaza genocide. Activist and advocacy groups have previously compiled lists of companies as potential targets for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, or for protests and blockades.
“The corporate sector has materially contributed to [Israel’s settler-colonialism] 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 to restrict access to natural resources,” Albanese writes.
“By helping to militarize and incentivize illegal Israeli presence in the occupied Palestinian territory, the corporate sector has contributed to the creation of the conditions for Palestinian ethnic cleansing,” the report goes on.
Albanese directly names just a few dozen of these companies in her report, representing some of the companies most entrenched in Israel’s genocide and apartheid industry.
They include numerous U.S.-based corporations and institutions, as well as international companies like shipping giant Maersk and heavy equipment manufacturer HD Hyundai.
“While life in Gaza is being obliterated and the West Bank is under escalating assault, the present report shows why the genocide carried out by Israel continues: because it is lucrative for many,” Albanese writes. “Business continues as usual, but nothing about this system, in which businesses are integral, is neutral.”
Below is a list of the U.S. companies mentioned by Albanese in the report, representing a non-exhaustive list of U.S. firms with involvement in Israel’s atrocities.
- Weapons Manufacturers: Lockheed Martin, at least 1,650 other companies, for the F-35
- Higher Education: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Tech companies: Alphabet (Google), Amazon, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Palantir
- Industrial Equipment: Caterpillar Inc.
- Real Estate: Airbnb, Booking.com, Keller Williams Realty LLC
- Fossil Fuels: BP, Chevron
- Finance: BlackRock, Pacific Investment Management Company LLC (PIMCO), Vanguard
- Faith-based charities: Christian Friends of Israeli Communities
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