“For some, genocide is profitable.” UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese has issued a blistering report accusing major companies of profiting from Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its occupation of Palestinian land.
Published On 3 Jul 20253 Jul 2025
The United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) has released a new report mapping the corporations aiding Israel in the displacement of Palestinians and its genocidal war on Gaza, in breach of international law.
Francesca Albanese’s latest report, which is scheduled to be presented at a news conference in Geneva on Thursday, names 48 corporate actors, including United States tech giants Microsoft, Alphabet Inc. – Google’s parent company – and Amazon. A database of more than 1000 corporate entities was also put together as part of the investigation.
“[Israel’s] forever-occupation has become the ideal testing ground for arms manufacturers and Big Tech – providing significant supply and demand, little oversight, and zero accountability – while investors and private and public institutions profit freely,” the report said.
“Companies are no longer merely implicated in occupation – they may be embedded in an economy of genocide,” it said, in a reference to Israel’s ongoing assault on the Gaza Strip. In an expert opinion last year, Albanese said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe Israel was committing genocide in the besieged Palestinian enclave.
The report stated that its findings illustrate “why Israel’s genocide continues”.
“Because it is lucrative for many,” it said.
Israel’s procurement of F-35 fighter jets is part of the world’s largest arms procurement programme, relying on at least 1,600 companies across eight nations. It is led by US-based Lockheed Martin, but F-35 components are constructed globally.
Italian manufacturer Leonardo S.p.A is listed as a main contributor in the military sector, while Japan’s FANUC Corporation provides robotic machinery for weapons production lines.
The tech sector, meanwhile, has enabled the collection, storage and governmental use of biometric data on Palestinians, “supporting Israel’s discriminatory permit regime”, the report said. Microsoft, Alphabet, and Amazon grant Israel “virtually government-wide access to their cloud and AI technologies”, enhancing its data processing and surveillance capacities.
The US tech company IBM has also been responsible for training military and intelligence personnel, as well as managing the central database of Israel’s Population, Immigration and Borders Authority (PIBA) that stores the biometric data of Palestinians, the report said.
It found US software platform Palantir Technologies expanded its support to the Israeli military since the start of the war on Gaza in October 2023. The report said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe the company provided automatic predictive policing technology used for automated decision-making in the battlefield, to process data and generate lists of targets including through artificial intelligence systems like “Lavender”, “Gospel” and “Where’s Daddy?”
![[AL Jazeera]](https://www.occasionaldigest.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/INTERACTIVE-UN-ISRAEL-COMPANIES-1-1751388779.png)
The report also lists several companies developing civilian technologies that serve as “dual-use tools” for Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory.
These include Caterpillar, Leonardo-owned Rada Electronic Industries, South Korea’s HD Hyundai and Sweden’s Volvo Group, which provide heavy machinery for home demolitions and the development of illegal settlements in the West Bank.
Rental platforms Booking and Airbnb also aid illegal settlements by listing properties and hotel rooms in Israeli-occupied territory.
The report named the US’s Drummond Company and Switzerland’s Glencore as the primary suppliers of coal for electricity to Israel, originating primarily from Colombia.
In the agriculture sector, Chinese Bright Dairy & Food is a majority owner of Tnuva, Israel’s largest food conglomerate, which benefits from land seized from Palestinians in Israel’s illegal outposts. Netafim, a company providing drip irrigation technology that is 80-percent owned by Mexico’s Orbia Advance Corporation, provides infrastructure to exploit water resources in the occupied West Bank.
Treasury bonds have also played a critical role in funding the ongoing war on Gaza, according to the report, with some of the world’s largest banks, including France’s BNP Paribas and the UK’s Barclays, listed as having stepped in to allow Israel to contain the interest rate premium despite a credit downgrade.
The report identified US multinational investment companies BlackRock and Vanguard as the main investors behind several listed companies.
BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, is listed as the second largest institutional investor in Palantir (8.6 percent), Microsoft (7.8 percent), Amazon (6.6 percent), Alphabet (6.6 percent) and IBM (8.6 per cent), and the third largest in Lockheed Martin (7.2 percent) and Caterpillar (7.5 percent).
Vanguard, the world’s second-largest asset manager, is the largest institutional investor in Caterpillar (9.8 percent), Chevron (8.9 percent) and Palantir (9.1 percent), and the second largest in Lockheed Martin (9.2 percent) and Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems (2 percent).
The report states that “colonial endeavours and their associated genocides have historically been driven and enabled by the corporate sector.” Israel’s expansion on Palestinian land is one example of “colonial racial capitalism”, where corporate entities profit from an illegal occupation.
Since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023, “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,” the report said.
For foreign arms companies, the war has been a lucrative venture. Israel’s military spending from 2023 to 2024 surged 65 percent, amounting to $46.5bn – one of the highest per capita worldwide.
Several entities listed on the exchange market – particularly in the arms, tech and infrastructure sectors – have seen their profits rise since October 2023. The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange also rose an unprecedented 179 percent, adding $157.9bn in market value.
Global insurance companies, including Allianz and AXA, invested large sums in shares and bonds linked to Israel’s occupation, the report said, partly as capital reserves but primarily to generate returns.
Booking and Airbnb also continue to profit from rentals in Israeli-occupied land. Airbnb briefly delisted properties on illegal settlements in 2018 but later reverted to donating profits from such listings to humanitarian causes, a practice the report referred to as “humanitarian-washing”.
According to Albanese’s report, yes. Corporate entities are under an obligation to avoid violating human rights through direct action or in their business partnerships.
States have the primary responsibility to ensure that corporate entities respect human rights and must prevent, investigate and punish abuses by private actors. However, corporations must respect human rights even if the state where they operate does not.
A company must therefore assess whether activities or relationships throughout its supply chain risk causing human rights violations or contributing to them, according to the report.
The failure to act in line with international law may result in criminal liability. Individual executives can be held criminally liable, including before international courts.
The report called on companies to divest from all activities linked to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory, which is illegal under international law.
In July 2024, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion ruling that Israel’s continued presence in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem should come to an end “as rapidly as possible”. In light of this advisory opinion, the UN General Assembly demanded that Israel bring to an end its unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territory by September 2025.
Albanese’s report said the ICJ’s ruling “effectively qualifies the occupation as an act of aggression … Consequently, any dealings that support or sustain the occupation and its associated apparatus may amount to complicity in an international crime under the Rome Statute.
“States must not provide aid or assistance or enter into economic or trade dealings, and must take steps to prevent trade or investment relations that would assist in maintaining the illegal situation created by Israel in the oPt.”
Israeli settlers targeted Israeli soldiers in an occupied West Bank riot.
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Norway’s largest pension fund, KLP, has said that it will no longer do business with two companies that sell equipment to the Israeli military because the equipment is possibly being used in the war in Gaza.
The two companies are the Oshkosh Corporation, a United States company mostly focused on trucks and military vehicles, and ThyssenKrupp, a German industrial firm that makes a broad selection of products, ranging from elevators and industrial machinery to warships.
“In June 2024, KLP learned of reports from the UN that several named companies were supplying weapons or equipment to the [Israeli army] and that these weapons are being used in Gaza,” Kiran Aziz, the head of responsible investments at KLP Kapitalforvaltning, said in a statement provided to Al Jazeera.
“Our conclusion is that the companies Oshkosh and ThyssenKrupp are contravening our responsible investment guidelines,” the statement said.
“We have therefore decided to exclude them from our investment universe.”
According to the pension fund, it had investments worth $1.8m in Oshkosh and almost $1m in ThyssenKrupp until June 2025.
KLP, founded in 1949 and the country’s largest pension fund, oversees a fund worth about $114bn. It is a public pension fund owned by municipalities and businesses in the public sector, and has a pension scheme that covers about 900,000 people, mostly municipal workers, according to its website.
KLP said that it had been in touch with both companies before it made its decision and that Oshkosh “confirmed that it has sold, and continues to sell, equipment that is used by the [Israeli army] in Gaza”, mostly vehicles and parts for vehicles.
ThyssenKrupp told KLP that “it has a long-term relationship with [the Israeli army]” and that it had delivered four warships of the type Sa’ar 6 to the Israeli Navy in the period November 2020 to May 2021.
The German company also said it had plans to deliver a submarine to the Israeli Navy later this year.
When asked by KLP what checks and balances were made when it came to the use of the equipment the companies delivered, KLP said both Oshkosh and ThyssenKrupp “failed to document the necessary due diligence in relation to their potential complicity in violations of humanitarian law”.
“Companies have an independent duty to exercise due diligence in order to avoid complicity in violations of fundamental human rights and humanitarian law,” said Aziz.
This is not the first time that the pension fund has divested from companies linked to possible human rights abuses.
In 2021, KLP divested from 16 companies, including telecom giant Motorola, that it concluded were linked to illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The pension fund said there was an “unacceptable risk that the excluded companies are contributing to the abuse of human rights in situations of war and conflict through their links with the Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank”.
That same year, KLP also said it was divesting from the Indian port and logistics group Adani Ports because of its links to the Myanmar military government.
Last summer, KLP also divested from US firm Caterpillar. In an opinion piece for Al Jazeera, the KLP’s Aziz wrote that Caterpillar’s bulldozers undergo adjustments in Israel by the military and local companies, and are subsequently used in the occupied Palestinian territory.
“The constant use of these weaponised bulldozers in the occupied Palestinian territory has led to a series of human rights warnings from United Nations agencies, and nongovernmental organisations over the last two decades about the company’s involvement in the demolition of Palestinian homes and infrastructure,” she wrote.
“It is therefore impossible to assert that the company has implemented adequate measures to avoid becoming involved in future norm violations.”
The latest move builds on a series of similar decisions among several large investment funds in Europe that have cut ties with Israeli companies for their involvement in either the war in Gaza or because of links to illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
In May, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the largest in the world, said it would divest from Israel’s Paz Retail and Energy because of the company’s involvement in supplying infrastructure and fuel to illegal Israeli settlements.
This came after an earlier decision in December last year to sell all shares it had in another Israeli company, Bezeq, for its services provided to the illegal settlements.
Other pension funds as well as wealth funds have also, in recent years, distanced themselves from companies accused of enabling or cooperating with Israel’s illegal occupation of the West Bank or its war on Gaza.
In February 2024, Denmark’s largest pension fund divested from several Israeli banks and companies as the fund feared its investments could be used to fund the settlements in the West Bank.
Six months later, the United Kingdom’s largest pension fund, the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), said it would sell off all its investments linked to Israel because of its war on Gaza. The fund, which totals about $79bn, said it would sell its $101m worth of investments after pressure from its members.
Israeli settlers and soldiers launched deadly raids across the occupied West Bank, killing four Palestinians.
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In this episode of Centre Stage, our guest is Dr Gabor Mate, a retired physician, author and Holocaust survivor who has written extensively on trauma and child development, as well as Israel and Palestine.
Mate talks about the colonial foundations of Zionism, how living under it has traumatised Palestinians and the ways mainstream media distorts the realities on the ground in Gaza.
Phil Lavelle is a TV news correspondent at Al Jazeera.
At least four Palestinians, including a teenager, have been killed in the occupied West Bank, where soldiers have been carrying out deadly raids for months and settlers have been violently rampaging against civilians unchecked, backed by the military.
The teenager was shot by Israeli forces, while the other three Palestinians were killed in an Israeli settler attack on the town of Kafr Malek, northeast of Ramallah. Seven others were injured in the settler attack.
Dozens of Israeli settlers attacked the town, burning vehicles and homes as residents of neighbouring villages attempted to confront them, local sources said. Israeli troops provided protection for the settlers and fired live rounds.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society said it treated at least five wounded Palestinians who suffered gunshot wounds, with some in serious condition.
Palestinian Vice President Hussein al-Sheikh said the settlers were acting “under the protection of the Israeli army”.
“We call on the international community to urgently intervene to protect our Palestinian people,” he added, in a message on X.
In the other deadly incident, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said that Israeli troops shot dead a 15-year-old Palestinian boy during a raid on al-Yamoun, a town west of Jenin.
The ministry identified the teenager as Rayan Tamer Houshieh and said he succumbed to his wounds after being shot in the neck.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said that its teams had handled “a very critical case” in al-Yamoun, involving a teenager, before pronouncing him dead.
The al-Yamoun incident marked the second time a teenager has been reported killed in the occupied territory in two days.
On Monday, the Health Ministry said that Israeli fire killed a 13-year-old, identified as Ammar Hamayel, in Kafr Malek.
The occupied West Bank is home to more than 3 million Palestinians who live under harsh Israeli military rule, with the Palestinian Authority governing in limited areas cut off from each other by a myriad of Israeli checkpoints.
Israel has so far built more than 100 settlements across the West Bank, which are home to about 500,000 settlers – Israeli citizens living illegally on private Palestinian land in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.
Although Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza has garnered more attention, Palestinian suffering in the occupied West Bank has been acute, with hundreds of deaths, thousands of people displaced, house demolitions and significant destruction since October 7, 2023.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Palestine has expressed alarm at the “wave of renewed violence” by Israeli settlers and armed forces in the West Bank earlier this year.
“Israel must immediately and completely cease all settlement activities and evacuate all settlers, stop the forcible transfer of the Palestinian population, and prevent and punish attacks by its security forces and settlers,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said.
Separately, earlier on Wednesday, a 66-year-old woman was shot in the head and killed by Israeli forces during a raid on the Shu’fat refugee camp, north of occupied East Jerusalem, according to several local media reports.
The Jerusalem governorate identified the woman as Zahriya Joudeh al-Obaid.
Her husband, Joudah Al-Obeidi, a 67-year-old resident of the camp, said his wife was standing on the roof of their home when Israeli forces stormed the area. He confirmed that police shot her in the head, and that she had posed no threat.
Like other refugee camps in Israeli-occupied areas, Shu’fat has seen repeated Israeli raids that often result in deaths, injuries and arrests.
In the northern West Bank, large-scale military incursions into Jenin and its refugee camp, as well as Tulkarem and the Nur Shams refugee camp, have resulted in widespread destruction and displacement of at least 40,000 people, according to UN figures.
Since Israeli forces launched its latest operation in Jenin 156 days ago, at least 40 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Wafa news agency.
Move follows campaign accusing Maersk of links to Israel’s military and occupation of Palestinian lands.
Maersk will cut ties with companies linked to illegal Israeli settlements on the occupied West Bank, the Danish shipping giant has said.
The decision follows months-long pressure by activists on Maersk on issues related to Palestine.
Its shipments have come under scrutiny as part of an international campaign led by the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), a grassroots organisation. The group has focused mainly on Maersk’s shipments of US foreign military sales, but PYM has also researched the transport of cargo from companies tied to settlements.
A statement on the Maersk website, dated June, 2025, said, “Following a recent review of transports related to the West Bank, we further strengthened our screening procedures in relation to Israeli settlements, including aligning our screening process with the OHCHR database of enterprises involved in activities in the settlements.”
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) database includes businesses involved in various activities related to the settlements, such as providing services, equipment, or financial operations that support the illegal settlements.
When asked for further details on its decision, Maersk pointed Al Jazeera to the statement on its website. It is unclear which or how many businesses Maersk had links to.
Israel has built more than 100 settlements across the occupied West Bank that are home to some 500,000 settlers. These settlements, illegal under international law, range from small outposts to larger communities with modern infrastructure.
“This sends a clear message to the global shipping industry: compliance with international law and basic human rights is not optional. Doing business with Israel’s illegal settlements is no longer viable, and the world is watching to see who follows next,” said PYM’s Aisha Nizar.
But she called for further action, arguing that Maersk still transports goods for the Israeli military, including components of its F-35 fighter planes.
“Maersk continues to profit from the genocide of our people – regularly shipping F-35 components used to bomb and massacre Palestinians,” Nizar said. “We will continue to build pressure and mobilise people power until Maersk cuts all ties to genocide and ends the transport of weapons and weapons components to Israel.”
Last year, Spain banned Maersk ships transporting military goods to Israel from using its ports.
Earlier this month, PYM revealed how Maersk was using the port of Rotterdam as an essential link in what it called a “supply chain of death”.
Despite a Dutch court ruling that prohibited the Netherlands from exporting F-35 parts to Israel, Rotterdam still played a role in Israel’s F-35 programme, the report showed.
In response to those findings, Maersk told Al Jazeera that it upholds a strict policy of not shipping weapons or ammunition to active conflict zones and that it conducts due diligence, particularly in regions affected by active conflicts, including Israel and Gaza, and adapts this due diligence to the changing context.
It confirmed, however, that its US subsidiary, Maersk Line Limited, was one of “many companies supporting the global F-35 supply chain” with transport services.
An EU diplomatic service audit report, seen by Reuters and AFP, looked at Israel’s actions in Gaza and occupied West Bank.
There are indications Israel may have breached its human rights obligations under the terms of a pact governing its ties with the European Union, a review of the agreement shows.
According to an EU document seen by the Reuters and AFP news agencies on Friday, the European External Action Service said that Israel’s actions in Gaza were likely not in line with rules laid out in the EU-Israel Association.
“On the basis of the assessments made by the independent international institutions … there are indications that Israel would be in breach of its human rights obligations,” the audit drafted by the EU’s diplomatic service read.
The report comes after months of deepening concern in European capitals about Israel’s operations in Gaza and the humanitarian situation in the enclave.
“Israel’s continued restrictions to the provision of food, medicines, medical equipment, and other vital supplies affect the entire population of Gaza present on the affected territory,” it said.
The document includes a section dedicated to the situation in Gaza – covering issues related to denial of humanitarian aid, attacks with a significant number of casualties, attacks on medical facilities, displacement and lack of accountability – as well as the situation in the occupied West Bank, including settler violence, Reuters reported.
The document said it relies on “facts verified by and assessments made by independent international institutions, and with a focus on most recent events in Gaza and the West Bank”.
The audit was launched last month in response to the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza, in a push backed by 17 states and spearheaded by the Netherlands.
The EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, is expected to present the findings of the report to the bloc’s foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday.
Under the EU-Israel agreement, which came into effect in 2000, the two parties agreed that their relationship would be based on “respect for human rights and democratic principles”.
Suspending the agreement would require a unanimous decision from the bloc’s 27 members, something diplomats have said from the beginning was virtually impossible.
According to AFP, diplomats have said that they expect Kallas to propose options on a response to the report during the next foreign ministers’ meeting in July.
“The question is … how many member states would still be willing not to do anything and still keep on saying that it’s business as usual,” an unnamed diplomat told the news agency ahead of the review’s findings.
“It’s really important to not fall into the trap of Israel to look somewhere else,” they said.
The EU is Israel’s largest commercial partner, with 42.6 billion euros ($48.2bn) in goods traded in 2024. Trade in services reached 25.6 billion euros ($29.5bn) in 2023.
Israel’s mission to the EU did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment about the contents of the document.
Israel has placed the occupied West Bank under lockdown, sealing the entrances of cities and villages with iron gates and concrete barriers, as its forces bomb Iran.
The Israeli siege continued for a third day on Sunday, as the military intensifies its operations in the Palestinian territory, where it has killed at least 943 Palestinians, more than 200 of them minors, according to the United Nations, since the war on Gaza started on October 7, 2023.
Palestinians in the West Bank say the Israeli actions are aimed at annexing their lands and expanding illegal settlements. An estimated three million Palestinians live under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank.
Since January this year, there have been ongoing Israeli operations in three refugee camps in Jenin and Tulkarem areas of the West Bank. At least 137 Palestinians, including 27 children, have been killed this year in the West Bank, according to the UN.
But in recent days, as Israel strikes Iran and the latter retaliates, the West Bank is under a lockdown.
Here’s what you need to know:
The Israeli military is applying a lockdown.
In addition to closing up cities and villages, it is severely restricting the movement of Palestinians by setting up checkpoints, according to Al Jazeera correspondent Nida Ibrahim, limiting entry and exit to areas.
The military has increased its presence in the West Bank cities like el-Bireh and Ramallah, according to Wafa, the Palestinian news agency. Strict checkpoints are also impeding movement in Nablus, Hebron, Qalqilya, and the Jordan Valley, where the checkpoints have disrupted the work of farmers and the transport of their produce.
“The ongoing closures have paralysed daily life across the West Bank, severely limiting mobility, restricting access to essential services, and impacting economic activity,” Wafa reported.
Palestinians say attempts to approach the checkpoints have been met with live fire from Israeli soldiers in some places, while in others, stun grenades and tear gas were deployed.
There are numerous reports of injuries. In the Tulkarem refugee camp, for example, a 16-year-old was reportedly shot in the leg by Israeli forces. They have also conducted night raids in the West Bank, arresting at least 15 people, according to Wafa.
Ambulances are struggling to reach the wounded as their movement is also being impeded.
“Even when we are granted Israeli military permission to move, we are detained at checkpoints for three to four hours before being allowed through,” said Fayez Abdel Jabbar, an ambulance driver. “This [Saturday] morning, one woman stayed three hours at one checkpoint. The only way we can function now is by transferring patients from one ambulance to another at these checkpoints.”
Even before the recent Israeli action, pregnant Palestinian women reported that checkpoints could be a matter of “life and death”.
Meanwhile, in several areas across the West Bank, Israeli soldiers have also expelled dozens of families from their homes and turned them into military positions.
Palestinians say it is being done to control them.
The Israeli government ramped up settlements and annexation of the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem in 2024, according to a report by the UN Human Rights Office in March this year.
An Israeli poster describes the lockdown as preemptive, saying movement will be restricted until further notice. It reads: “Terror only brings death and destruction.”
“Palestinians say they are the ones under attack,” Ibrahim reported.
Qassim Awwad of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) settlement unit said, since October 7, 2023, Israel has increased the checkpoints and barriers in the West Bank from 600 to 900. “Now they are using this time [war with Iran] to increase the lockdown on Palestinians, turning them into isolated cantons separated from one another,” he said.
Meanwhile, Israel on Sunday killed at least 23 people in Gaza, including 11 waiting to get aid. Since October 7, 2023, Israel has killed 55,297 Palestinians and wounded 128,426 others, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.
It goes on.
“Settlers continue attacking Palestinian homes and properties,” Al Jazeera’s Ibrahim reported. “Others exploit the siege to establish and expand new illegal settlement outposts.”
In the city of Sderot last Thursday, Israeli cabinet ministers and the government’s coalition partners held a conference where they pledged to annex the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli media reports.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi spoke in favour of annexation, while Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu reportedly called out for the same in Syria and Lebanon as well.
“Do we want Judea and Samaria [the West Bank]? Do we want Syria? Do we want Lebanon? Do we want Gaza?” Eliyahu reportedly shouted to a crowd that responded in the affirmative.
The night skies of Palestine, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan have been illuminated by the exchange of missiles between Iran and Israel since Friday.
As Israel tries to shoot down the Iranian missiles, some of their remnants have landed in the West Bank, where, unlike Israel, the residents have no access to bomb shelters or protection. Dozens of Palestinians in the territory have been wounded by intercepted missiles.
“Palestinians say they are caught between the Iranian projectiles and Israeli missiles intercepting them,” Ibrahim said.
“The Palestinian government says it is working to ensure the entry of food and fuel,” Ibrahim added. “With Israel controlling almost every aspect of their lives, Palestinians fear their governments’ ability to assist them is severely limited.”
Most of the global attention in the last few days has been on the exchange of strikes between Israel and Iran.
But UNRWA, the UN agency focused on Palestinian refugees, said in a statement on Friday that the West Bank is “not a warzone”.
“It is governed by international standards and codes of conduct for law enforcement, which Israeli forces have an obligation to uphold. Law enforcement exists for the purpose of safeguarding human rights, not violating them. It should seek to protect the most vulnerable, not further victimise them. Above all, it should preserve human dignity and life,” Roland Friedrich, director of UNRWA affairs in the West Bank, posted on X.
For the past months, the northern #WestBank has witnessed an uninterrupted stream of mass demolitions by Israeli Security Forces, and orders trying to justify them. On 9 June, yet another demolition order was issued: this time for Jenin Camp, where a similar order was announced…
— Roland Friedrich (@GRFriedrich) June 10, 2025
UN spokesman says Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is not delivering supplies safely to those in need.
The United Nations says the Israeli- and United States-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) is a “failure” from a humanitarian perspective.
Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said aid operations have stalled because the GHF is not delivering supplies safely to those in need.
“GHF, I think it’s fair to say, has been, from a principled humanitarian standpoint, a failure,” Laerke told reporters in Geneva on Friday. “They are not doing what a humanitarian operation should do, which is providing aid to people where they are, in a safe and secure manner.”
The UN and major aid groups have refused to cooperate with the GHF, citing concerns that it prioritises Israeli military objectives over humanitarian needs.
The newly formed private organisation began operations on May 26 after Israel had completely cut off supplies into Gaza for more than two months, sparking warnings of mass famine.
It says it has distributed more than 18 million meals since then.
On Friday, more than 30 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks, medical sources told Al Jazeera.
Al Jazeera’s Tariq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, said Israeli forces were targeting parts of Khan Younis in southern Gaza with artillery fire and ground attacks.
“The Israeli military is deepening its ground operations,” Azzoum said, saying there were clashes in the eastern part of the city.
The besieged territory remained under a communications blackout for a second day on Friday. Hamas has denounced what it described as an Israeli decision to cut communication lines in Gaza, calling it “a new aggressive step” in the country’s “war of extermination”.
Israel continues to force civilians into what it calls the “safe zone” of al-Mawasi, a barren coastal strip with no infrastructure, which it has repeatedly bombed. A drone strike on a tent there killed at least two people on Friday.
The attack left “everyone on the ground quite confused about where they can go in order to find safety”, Azzoum said.
In the occupied West Bank, Israel sealed all crossings and checkpoints between Palestinian towns and cities early on Friday, shortly after it launched a wave of air strikes on targets in Iran.
Sources told Al Jazeera the closures were imposed without any indication of when they might be lifted.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society said its ambulances were being denied access to patients, including those in urgent need of medical care.
In occupied East Jerusalem, Israeli forces closed Al-Aqsa Mosque, preventing Palestinians from attending Friday prayers.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa held an emergency cabinet meeting in response and activated crisis committees across the West Bank.
The UK, Australia, Canada, Norway and New Zealand imposed sanctions on Israeli far-right ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, over their incitement of violence against Palestinians. The US criticised the move as “unhelpful” to Gaza ceasefire efforts.
Published On 11 Jun 202511 Jun 2025
The decision to add 22 settlements to the occupied West Bank ignores international law and a landmark UN resolution.
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Israel says its settlement expansion is to “prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state” as it announced 22 new settlements in the occupied West Bank. Palestinian lawyer Diana Buttu says Israeli officials are daring the world to stop them.
Published On 2 Jun 20252 Jun 2025
Foreign ministers from Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE had planned the visit to discuss Palestinian statehood and end to war on Gaza.
Saudi Arabia has accused Israel of “extremism and rejection of peace” after it blocked a planned visit by Arab foreign ministers to the occupied West Bank.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud made the remarks during a joint news conference in Jordan’s capital, Amman, on Sunday with his counterparts from Jordan, Egypt, and Bahrain.
“Israel’s refusal of the committee’s visit to the West Bank embodies and confirms its extremism and refusal of any serious attempts for [a] peaceful pathway … It strengthens our will to double our diplomatic efforts within the international community to face this arrogance,” Prince Faisal said.
His comments followed Israel’s decision to block the Arab delegation from reaching Ramallah, where they were set to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The ministers from Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had planned the visit as part of efforts to support Palestinian diplomacy amid Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza.
Israel controls the airspace and borders of the West Bank, and on Friday announced it would not grant permission for the visit.
“The Palestinian Authority – which to this day refuses to condemn the October 7 massacre – intended to host in Ramallah a provocative meeting of foreign ministers from Arab countries to discuss the promotion of the establishment of a Palestinian state,” an Israeli official had said, adding that Israel will “not cooperate” with the visit.
Prince Faisal’s trip to the West Bank would have marked the first such visit by a top Saudi official in recent memory.
Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said blocking the trip was another example of how Israel was “killing any chance of a just and comprehensive” Arab-Israeli settlement.
An international conference, co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, is due to be held in New York from June 17 to 20 to discuss the issue of Palestinian statehood.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said the conference would cover security arrangements after a ceasefire in Gaza and reconstruction plans to ensure Palestinians would remain on their land and foil any Israeli plans to evict them.
Israel has come under increasing pressure from the United Nations and European countries, which favour a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, under which an independent Palestinian state would exist alongside Israel.
Residents of Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank retrieve their belongings from their homes before they’re demolished by the Israeli military. Tens of thousands have already been forced out. This comes as Israel approves 22 illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, the largest expansion in decades.
Published On 29 May 202529 May 2025
Israel’s government has approved a major expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. The defence minister said the aim is to prevent a Palestinian state. Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim has more details of the plan.
Published On 29 May 202529 May 2025
Israel announces 22 new illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, fuelling fears of further annexation and erasure.
The Israeli government says it will establish 22 illegal settlements on Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank, including the legalisation of some so-called “outposts” already built without government authorisation, in a move decried by Palestinian officials and rights groups.
Defence Minister Israel Katz and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced the decision on Thursday, with Katz saying that it “strengthens our hold on Judea and Samaria,” using an Israeli term for the occupied West Bank.
He added it was also “a strategic move that prevents the establishment of a Palestinian state that would endanger Israel”.
Smotrich, himself a settler on illegally occupied Palestinian-owned land and an advocate for Israeli annexation of the West Bank, hailed the “historic decision”.
In a statement, the Likud party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the move as a “once-in-a-generation decision”, emphasising its strategic value in fortifying Israel’s hold along the eastern border with Jordan.
Israel has already built more than 100 illegal settlements across the occupied West Bank that are home to some 500,000 settlers. The settlements range from small outposts to larger communities with modern infrastructure.
The West Bank is home to more than three million Palestinians, who live under Israeli military rule, with the Palestinian Authority governing in limited areas.
The Palestinians see the territory as an integral part of a future state, along with occupied East Jerusalem and Gaza.
Palestinian officials and rights groups slammed the Israeli government’s decision, warning that the expansion of illegal settlements would further harm the prospects for a future Palestinian state.
Palestinian presidential spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh condemned the decision, calling it a “dangerous escalation” and a “challenge to international legitimacy”.
He accused Israel of fuelling instability in the region and warned the move breaches international law. “This decision violates all international resolutions, especially UN Security Council Resolution 2334,” he said, adding that all settlement activity remains illegal and illegitimate.
Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri condemned called on the United States and the European Union to take action.
“The announcement of the building of 22 new settlements in the West Bank is part of the war led by Netanyahu against the Palestinian people,” Abu Zuhri told the news agency Reuters.
The Israeli NGO Peace Now said the move “will dramatically reshape the West Bank and further entrench the occupation”.
“The Israeli government no longer pretends otherwise: the annexation of the occupied territories and expansion of settlements is its central goal,” it said in a statement.
“This is the largest batch of illegal Israeli settlements to be approved in one decision,” reported Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim from the occupied West Bank.
“Israeli settlements are strangling Palestinian communities inside the West Bank,” said Ibrahim. “These new settlements fill the gaps, making a future Palestinian state almost impossible on the ground. Israel is using this moment – while global attention is fixed on Gaza – to cement its occupation.”
The settlement announcement comes just weeks ahead of a high-level international conference, jointly led by France and Saudi Arabia at the United Nations, aiming to revive the long-dormant process to agree a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Israel is applying many of the tactics used in its war on Gaza to seize and control territory across the occupied West Bank during its Operation Iron Wall campaign, a new report says.
Israel launched the operation in January. Defending what the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) termed “by far the longest and most destructive operation in the occupied West Bank since the second intifada in the 2000s”, the Israeli military claimed its intention was to preserve its “freedom of action” within the Palestinian territory as it continued to rip up roads and destroy buildings, infrastructure, and water and electricity lines.
The report by the British research group Forensic Architecture suggested Israel has imposed what researchers call a system of “spatial control”, essentially a series of mechanisms that allow it to deploy military units across Palestinian territory at will.
The report focused on Israeli action in the refugee camps of Jenin and Far’a in the northern West Bank and Nur Shams and Tulkarem in the northwestern West Bank. Researchers interviewed and analysed witness statements, satellite imagery and hundreds of videos to demonstrate a systematic plan of coordinated Israeli action intended to impose a network of military control in refugee camps across the West Bank similar to that imposed upon Gaza.
In the process, existing roads have been widened while homes, private gardens and adjacent properties have been demolished to allow for the rapid deployment of Israeli military vehicles.
“This network of military routes is clearly visible in the Jenin refugee camp and evidence indicates that the same tactic is, at the time of publication, being repeated in the Nur Shams and Tulkarm refugee camps,” the report’s authors noted.
Israeli ministers have previously stated that they planned to use the same methods in the West Bank that have destroyed the Gaza Strip, leading to more than 54,000 Palestinians killed and the majority of buildings damaged or destroyed.
In January, Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israel would apply the “lesson” of “repeated raids in Gaza” to the Jenin refugee camp. The following month, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has control over much of the administration of the West Bank, boasted that “Tulkarem and Jenin will look like Jabalia and Shujayea. Nablus and Ramallah will resemble Rafah and Khan Younis,” comparing refugee camps in the West Bank to areas in Gaza that have been devastated by Israeli bombing and ground offensives.
“They will also be turned into uninhabitable ruins, and their residents will be forced to migrate and seek a new life in other countries,” Smotrich said.
Hamze Attar, a Luxembourg-based defence analyst, told Al Jazeera these tactics are not new in Palestinian territory, having first been deployed by the British during their mandate over historic Palestine, which preceded Israel’s foundation in 1948.
“It’s part of the “counterinsurgency” strategy,” he said. “Bigger roads [mean] easy access to forces – bigger roads, less congested battle management; bigger roads, less ability for fighters to escape from house to house.”
About 75,000 Palestinians live in the Jenin, Nur Shams, Far’a and Tulkarem refugee camps. They were either displaced themselves or descended from those displaced during the Nakba (which means “catastrophe”) when roughly 750,000 Palestinians were forced from their homes by Zionist forces from 1947 to 1949 as part of the creation of Israel.
Now, at least 40,000 of those living in the West Bank refugee camps have been displaced as a result of Operation Iron Wall, according to the United Nations.
As in Gaza, many of these people were forced from their homes on orders from the Israeli military, which researchers said have been “weaponised” against the local population.
Once an area had been cleared of its buildings and roads, it becomes a kill zone and the Israeli military is free to reshape and build whatever it likes without interference from residents, the report said.
“Such engineered mass displacement has allowed the Israeli military to reshape these built environments unobstructed,” the report noted, adding that when Palestinian residents did try to return to their homes after Israeli military action, they were often obstructed by the continued presence of troops.
Forensic Architecture researchers said Israeli attacks on medical facilities in Gaza have also spilled over into the West Bank.
“Israeli attacks on medical infrastructure in the West Bank have included placing hospitals under siege, obstructing ambulance access to areas with injured civilians, targeting medical personnel, and using at least one medical facility as a detention and interrogation centre,” the report said.
During Israel’s initial attacks on the Jenin refugee camp on January 21, multiple hospitals were surrounded by the Israeli military, including Jenin Government Hospital, al-Amal Hospital and al-Razi Hospital, researchers noted.
The following day, civilians and hospital staff reported that the main road leading to Jenin Government Hospital was destroyed by Israeli military bulldozers and access to the hospital was blocked by newly constructed berms, or land barriers,
On February 4, reports from Jenin said the Israeli military was obstructing ambulances carrying injured people from reaching the hospital.
Also carrying unmistakable echoes of Gaza was an UNRWA report in early February saying the Israeli military had forcibly co-opted one of the health centres at the UNRWA-run Arroub camp near Jerusalem as an interrogation and detention site.
The attacks on healthcare facilities were part of a wider campaign to damage civilian infrastructure in the West Bank, the Forensic Architecture report said, using armoured bulldozers, controlled demolitions and air attacks.
Researchers said they verified more than 200 examples of Israeli soldiers deliberately destroying buildings and street networks in all four of the refugee camps with armoured bulldozers reducing civilian roads to barely passable piles of exposed earth and rubble.
Civilian property, including parked vehicles, food carts and agricultural buildings, such as greenhouses, were also destroyed during Israeli military operations, they said.
Palestinian groups slam the raids targeting exchanges in several cities in a widespread operation in the territory.
Israeli forces have raided money exchanges across the occupied West Bank, using live fire and tear gas as they stormed the city of Nablus, killing at least one Palestinian and wounding more than 30.
Exchange shops in the cities of Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron Arrabeh, el-Bireh, Bethlehem, Jenin and Tubas were attacked on Tuesday, residents said.
In the northern city of Nablus, Israeli soldiers raided a foreign exchange belonging to the Al-Khaleej company and a gold store, according to local media reports. They also fired smoke bombs in the centre of Jenin, and streets were closed in Tubas and Bethlehem in the occupied Palestinian territory.
The Ramallah-based Ministry of Health said one man was killed and eight injured by live ammunition during a raid in Nablus.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society said it treated 20 people for tear gas inhalation and three injured by rubber bullets.
The raids on foreign exchanges came as Israel continued its intensified military campaign in Gaza, killing more than 54,000 Palestinians since the war began on October 7, 2023, as tens of thousands of people starve in the besieged enclave.
Israeli Army Radio on Tuesday said Israel conducted the raids on foreign exchanges on suspicions that the shops supported “terrorism”. The radio station also said the operation resulted in the confiscation of large amounts of money designated for “terrorism infrastructure” in the West Bank.
“Israeli forces are taking action against Al-Khaleej Exchange Company due to its connections with terrorist organisations,” a leaflet left by Israeli forces at the company’s Ramallah location read.
Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut said Israeli authorities have not released an official statement yet but an official talked to the Israeli media about the raids.
“This official said earlier that Israel ‘believes’ – not that it has any evidence or proof – but ‘believes’ that these cash exchange places are funnelling money to what they call terror organisations,” said Salhut, who was reporting from Amman, Jordan, because Israel has banned Al Jazeera from reporting from Israel and the West Bank.
“The people who own these shops say they were not given any sort of proof by the Israeli military,” she added.
Salhut said it was the fourth time such raids have taken place since the start of the Israeli genocide in Gaza.
“The first time was in December of 2023 when five different cash exchange places were raided by the Israeli military and they seized nearly $3m,” she said. “It happened again in August 2024 and again in September of that same year.”
Hamas denounced the Israeli raids, saying they “constitute a new chapter in the occupation’s open war against the Palestinian people, their lives, their economy, and all the foundations of their steadfastness and perseverance on their land”.
“These assaults on economic institutions, accompanied by the looting of large sums of money and the confiscation of property, are an extension of the piracy policies adopted by the [Israeli] occupation government,” the Palestinian group said in a statement, adding that the targeted companies were “operating within the law”.
Hamas urged the Palestinian Authority to take measures against the Israeli attacks.
Separately, the Palestinian Mujahideen Movement said the raids are “part of the open war against our people, targeting their very existence and cause”. The group also urged the Palestinian Authority to “defend” Palestinians from such attacks and “halt its policy of security coordination” with Israel.