Jordan’s King Abdullah II decried Israeli settler incursions in the occupied West Bank as a strategy of ‘forced displacement’ that should be considered a war crime.
Published On 22 Sep 202622 Sep 2026
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At least four Palestinians are trapped inside the home, while settlers have set fire to nearby Palestinian land.
Published On 29 Aug 202629 Aug 2026
Israeli settlers, backed by Israeli forces, have surrounded a Palestinian home in the village of Qusra, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank.
At least four Palestinians are trapped inside the home while settlers have set fire to nearby land, according to Al Jazeera journalists.
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Coordination is under way to allow ambulances to reach the area and evacuate one injured person.
Qusra has faced an escalating campaign of settler violence over the past month.
Settlers set fire to a mosque in the village in July, and since August 9 have besieged three Palestinian homes in the Ras al-Ain area, cutting access to water, electricity and other essential supplies.
“We’re not allowed to live freely in and out of our houses; no one is allowed to bring us any food or visit us from family members or friends,” Loui Abu Raideh, a resident trapped in his home, told Al Jazeera.
He said residents have to coordinate with the mayor of Qusra to get food and supplies, and it can take three to four days to get approval.
Israeli forces have declared the area a closed military zone and restricted Palestinians from entering and leaving, placing a gate at the main entrance of Qusra itself. Palestinians travelling into the village are forced to take alternative routes which are often blocked by Israeli forces.
On Wednesday, the Israeli military erected three new roadblocks at locations that encircled the top of the Ras al-Ain hill, disconnecting homes from the area below it.
Raideh said the feeling of being trapped is “a nightmare … 21 days, we can’t even sleep, we have to stay up at night [and] keep watching the security cameras, because those settlers can attack any time”.
Settler attacks – supported by the Israeli military – on Palestinian homes, businesses and farmland across the West Bank have been common for decades as illegal settlements have expanded across the territory.
The attacks have increased in intensity and frequency since Israel launched its genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza in October 2023, in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel.
At least 17 companies linked to illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank hold United Kingdom public-sector contracts worth more than 2.1 billion pounds ($2.85bn), an Al Jazeera investigation reveals.
The findings come as more than 140 UK Labour MPs are calling on the government to ban trade with illegal Israeli settlements, a move Prime Minister Andy Burnham is considering.
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Our analysis of procurement records, company filings and corporate disclosures found that businesses named by the United Nations over their involvement in illegal Israeli settlements – and companies those businesses ultimately own or control as subsidiaries – have secured contracts across the British public sector, including in areas such as road maintenance, transport, emergency services and driving licensing.
“Evidence is growing that the UK may be in breach of its international obligations … by continuing to contract with entities identified by the UN as providing assistance of this sort,” Stephen Humphreys, professor of international law at the London School of Economics, told Al Jazeera.
Data compiled by public procurement analysts Tussell, and shared with Al Jazeera, shows the 17 companies and entities hold 125 public-sector contracts with a combined award value of 2.129 billion pounds ($2.89bn).
Companies owned by Motorola Solutions, the United States technology and communications giant, account for more than 1.7 billion pounds ($2.3bn) of the total – the vast majority through its British subsidiary Airwave Solutions. Other contracts we reviewed are held by firms within four other corporate groups including Heidelberg Materials, a German multinational building materials company; the French engineering group Egis; the Spanish train manufacturer CAF and Chinese conglomerate Fosun.
A report by the United Nations Human Rights Office identifies the five corporate groups as involved in business activities related to illegal Israeli settlements.
Heidelberg Materials’ Israeli subsidiary owns a quarry on Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank, while Motorola is embedded in the security infrastructure of illegal settlements. Egis and CAF are involved in Jerusalem’s expanding light-rail network – a project activists say entrenches Israel’s control by integrating settlements into the city while further fragmenting Palestinian neighbourhoods.
Fosun International, whose subsidiary Breas Medical receives UK public money, also owns the controversial Israeli cosmetics manufacturer Ahava, which operates in the Mitzpe Shalem illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank. Civil rights groups, including the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign in the UK, decry Ahava as a firm that is “complicit” in the theft of Palestinian land and livelihoods.
Meanwhile, violence is escalating in the occupied West Bank.
In July 2024, the International Court of Justice found Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory unlawful and said it must end “as rapidly as possible”. The court also placed obligations on other states “not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”.
That raises questions over Britain’s continued commercial relationships with the companies identified in Al Jazeera’s investigation, observers said.
Humphreys believes that Britain may also be failing to meet its legal obligations by “failing to launch its own investigation into their activities, with a view to preventing them if necessary”.
The UK has also warned businesses against bidding for construction tenders in illegal settlements.
“Businesses should not consider bidding for construction tenders,” a government statement issued this month said, warning of “legal and reputational consequences” and the risk of involvement in “serious breaches of international law”.
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said Al Jazeera’s findings expose a contradiction between the UK’s stated position and its economic ties.
“Quite simply, the UK government is propping up apartheid,” Corbyn told Al Jazeera. “Every day, the UK deepens its complicity in Israel’s economy of occupation and, in turn, Israel’s economy of genocide.”
The Cabinet Office told Al Jazeera that individual public authorities make decisions to exclude suppliers case-by-case for each contract. It said public procurement in the UK should not be used to boycott suppliers linked to other countries unless formal UK sanctions, embargoes or restrictions are in place.
Here’s what we found about some of the companies involved in settlement trade:
The UN identifies Motorola in connection with two settlement-related activities: the “supply of security services, equipment and materials to enterprises operating in settlements” and the “provision of services and utilities supporting the maintenance and existence of settlements, including transport”.
Al Jazeera contacted the Motorola Solutions group for comment but received no response.
It is the largest beneficiary of UK public money that we investigated.
Motorola’s subsidiaries are entrusted with providing communications equipment to the emergency services in the UK. The largest contract identified by Al Jazeera is held by Airwave Solutions, a Motorola subsidiary. The Home Office awarded Airwave an extension worth 1.562 billion pounds ($2.13bn) to provide the secure communications network used by police, fire and ambulance services across England, Scotland and Wales. Motorola Solutions UK separately holds contracts worth 123.9 million pounds ($170m), including a 36.5-million-pound ($49.8m) Ministry of Defence contract for Airwave radios, accessories and airtime.
Five companies now ultimately controlled by Motorola Solutions Inc – Airwave Solutions Ltd, Motorola Solutions UK Ltd, CRFS Ltd, 3TC Software Ltd and Noggin IT Ltd – hold 91 active UK public-sector contracts worth 1.726 billion pounds ($2.3bn), according to the latest Tussell data.
Motorola Solutions Inc and its Israeli subsidiary, Motorola Solutions Israel Ltd, were included when the UN Human Rights Office first published its database of businesses involved in specified settlement-related activities in 2020. Both remain in its latest version.
Official records provide a glimpse of how the company’s technology has been embedded in settlements.
Tenders from Mateh Binyamin Regional Council and the municipal corporation of Ariel, both illegal settlements, show Motorola command-and-control technology being used in security and surveillance infrastructure.
Motorola equipment has also been bought by the Israeli Civil Administration, the military body through which Israel administers civilian affairs in the occupied West Bank.
In 2005, the UN reported that Motorola supplied surveillance systems to settlements including Hebron, Karmei Tzur and Bracha.
Motorola’s relationship with the Israeli authorities continues today. An Israeli government procurement document obtained by Al Jazeera shows Motorola Solutions Israel was awarded a 25.5-million-shekel ($8.7m) contract in May 2026 to maintain approximately 19,000 police radios and provide encryption licences until April 2028.
The UN has listed Heidelberg Materials over the commercial use of natural resources in occupied Palestinian territory.
In Britain, five Heidelberg Materials companies hold 25 public-sector contracts worth 184.79 million pounds ($252m). Almost all of that – 179.03 million pounds ($244m) – is held by Hanson Quarry Products Europe Ltd. Its contracts include 60 million pounds ($81.9m) from Westmorland and Furness Council for road surfacing and highway works between 2024 and 2027, and a 50-million-pound ($68.3m) surfacing maintenance contract with Somerset Council.
Its Israeli subsidiary, Hanson Israel, owns the Nahal Raba quarry, south of Qalqilya in the West Bank. The quarry sits on land belonging to the Palestinian villages of az-Zawiya and Rafat, according to Who Profits.
An official Civil Administration planning notice reviewed by Al Jazeera shows a proposal was approved to expand the site.
Who Profits, a group that researches links between the private sector and the economy in the Israeli-occupied territories, said the approval was granted on May 28, 2025.
Heidelberg told Al Jazeera that in 2023, Hanson Israel “ceased all activities at the Nahal Raba quarry and the associated asphalt plant and ready-mix concrete plant”, adding that only security personnel are present on site.
French engineering group Egis provides another type of connection via transport infrastructure linking illegal Israeli settlements in occupied East Jerusalem with the rest of the city.
The UN lists Egis in connection with the “provision of services and utilities supporting the maintenance and existence of settlements, including transport”.
Egis’s own material shows that its involvement in Jerusalem’s expanding light-rail network continues today, with the company website advertising a job for an engineering expert based in Jerusalem on its light-rail projects.
Jerusalem Transportation Master Plan procurement documents from 2017 also identify Egis Rail as its general consultant, responsible for supervising and coordinating planning and design work on the Blue and Green lines.
Jerusalem’s light rail crosses into occupied East Jerusalem and links illegal Israeli settlements there with West Jerusalem. UN reports have described the railway as “additional infrastructure serving the illegal settlement network” and said it further isolates occupied East Jerusalem from the rest of the occupied West Bank.
Egis told Al Jazeera it “formally expressed its disagreement with this inclusion” in the UN database.
In Britain, five companies and entities controlled by Egis hold six public-sector contracts worth 133.60 million pounds ($182.4m). Almost the entire amount comes from a single contract, with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency awarding Egis Projects UK Ltd a 133.23-million-pound ($181.9m) contract for enforcement services across Britain. Egis businesses also hold UK public contracts, including Galson Sciences, Helios Technology, Egis Transport Solutions and architecture practice WestonWilliamson+Partners.
Spanish train manufacturer CAF is also involved in Jerusalem’s light-rail network. The company has disclosed that the 1.8-billion-euro ($2.10bn) Jerusalem project was awarded in 2019 to TransJerusalem J-Net Ltd, a firm owned 50 percent by CAF and 50 percent by Israeli construction business Shapir.
CAF said the project includes construction of the Green Line and extension of the existing Red Line, “which partially run through East Jerusalem”. The construction phase is expected to continue until 2027.
The UN identifies CAF over the “supply of equipment and materials facilitating the construction and the expansion of settlements” and the “use of natural resources, in particular water and land, for business purposes”.
Al Jazeera contacted CAF for comment but received no response.
Meanwhile, CAF has an extensive relationship with Britain’s public sector, including supplying trams for one of the country’s major urban networks. The West Midlands Combined Authority awarded CAF an 83.5-million-pound ($114m) contract for a new generation of trams for the West Midlands Metro. The contract runs until December 2027, according to Tussell data.
Chinese conglomerate Fosun International is identified by the UN under the category covering the commercial use of natural resources, particularly water and land.
Its connection to the occupied West Bank centres on Israeli cosmetics manufacturer Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories. Fosun itself announced in April 2016 that it had agreed to acquire Ahava for 290 million shekels ($76.8m).
Fosun’s subsequent statutory reporting recorded Ahava as 99.46-percent owned.
A European Commission statement in 2018 said Ahava “does have operations in the settlement Mitzpeh Shalem, located in Occupied Territories”.
According to the Quaker-founded organisation, American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), repeated site visits confirmed that Ahava’s former factory in the illegal Mitzpe Shalem settlement remained operational as of 2026.
The group said Dead Sea mud was excavated in the occupied Palestinian territory and initially processed at the site before being transferred to Ein Gedi for further production.
In Britain, Breas Medical, which is ultimately owned through Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical by Fosun International, holds two public-sector contracts worth 1.29 million pounds ($1.76m). Fosun International is the controlling shareholder of Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical.
Al Jazeera contacted Fosun for comment but received no response.
Dutch group Christians for Israel is taking the government to court in the Netherlands over its plans to introduce a ban on importing goods from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and Golan Heights.
The ban, which was announced in July, is due to take effect on September 22 and will run for three years. It bars importing, buying and selling goods produced in Israeli settlements, as well as intermediary services and any attempt to circumvent the rules.
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But the Israel Product Centre (IPC), part of Christians for Israel (CvI), a Dutch evangelical organisation which a recent study found has donated about $300,000 to illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, has responded by filing summary proceedings against the state, with the hearing due today.
Here’s what we know about this case.
The IPC has issued summary proceedings against the Dutch state, seeking to block the July decree.
The IPC argues the measure is “one-sided” and that the window it now has to clear its existing stock – some 20,000 bottles of wine – is too short.
It is also arguing that a national ban conflicts with the European Union’s principle of free movement of goods.
A verdict is not expected for about two weeks.
EU rules have long required goods from illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank to be labelled by their origin – Palestine – rather than as “product of Israel”, but the bloc has not placed an outright ban on trading with Israeli settlements. That remains up to individual countries.
In February 2020, the Dutch advocacy group DocP urged consumers to file complaints with the Dutch food safety authority, NVWA, if they found wine and Dead Sea cosmetics had been mislabelled.
Following complaints, the IPC changed its labelling to “product uit een Israelisch dorp in Judea & Samaria [product from an Israeli village in Judea and Samaria],” which it argued accurately reflected the exact geographical and administrative reality of the origins of the products without deceiving the buyer. Judea and Samaria is the biblical name used by the Israeli government to refer to the West Bank. DocP argued this fell short of the requirement to label products correctly, and continued its campaign.
In 2021, the NVWA agreed and fined the IPC 2,100 euros (about $2,500) for mislabelling goods.
Then, in July 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an advisory opinion that Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territory is unlawful and must end “as rapidly as possible”.
This shifted the legal argument beyond mere consumer labelling, with the court saying countries should take steps to prevent trade or investment relations which help to maintain the unlawful presence of Israeli settlers in the Palestinian territories.
The lower house of the Dutch parliament acted on that in September 2025, proposing an import ban.
The national decree against importing goods from Israeli settlements was made in July this year.
CvI describes the West Bank as a “disputed territory” rather than accepting the international legal description of it as “occupied Palestinian territory”.
It says it believes that Israel has strong claims to sovereignty there and that Jews have a right to live there.
The vocabulary matters in a legal sense, as “disputed territory” is not the same as “annexed territory”, therefore, the legal apparatus which would make settlement trade unlawful doesn’t straightforwardly apply.
The group’s stated reasons for funding projects there, it says on its website, are rooted in the Bible; it cites Ezekiel 47:21-23: “Peace for the Jewish people and resident foreigners inheriting alongside the tribes of Israel.”
However, the ICJ’s July 2024 advisory opinion is clear that the Fourth Geneva Convention’s Article 49(6) and successive Security Council resolutions treat the territories as occupied and the settlements as unlawful.
Western churches are split on the issue, with CvI sitting at one end of the spectrum.
Mainline Protestants, including the Presbyterian Church in the United States, have divested shareholdings in Caterpillar, HP and Motorola Solutions as early as 2014, and from Israeli bonds in 2024. The United Methodist Church has opposed Israeli settlements since 1996 and sold its Israeli bond holdings last August.
The World Council of Churches called for sanctions against illegal Israeli settlements in 2025, divestment and an arms embargo.
The Vatican calls settlements an obstacle to peace but has avoided divestment so far.
Christian Zionist bodies, however, including Christians United for Israel (CUFI) and the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, send funding for settlements and fight against boycotts.
It is significant considering that the Netherlands is one of only four EU countries currently imposing a ban on trade with illegal Israeli settlements.
Trade from illegal settlements to the EU is estimated to be worth up to $400m per year.
The Netherlands is also a big market for the illegal settlements; a recent investigation by legal advocacy group Global Echo, which analysed thousands of shipments from Israeli settlements between 2017 and 2026, shows that within the EU, the Dutch market is the largest importer of goods from illegal settlements, with about 30 percent destined for or passing through the country.
Spain has banned all imports of products from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory, including the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, since September 2025. The decree also enforces an embargo on defence exports and dual-use technology to Israel, bans ships carrying military fuel for Israel from Spanish ports, and restricts advertising for services or goods linked to Israeli settlements.
Ireland’s parliament approved the text of its Israeli Settlements (Prohibition of Importation of Goods) Bill in May and the bill was signed into law in July. It covers all goods produced in Israeli settlements, but excludes services.
Belgium’s federal government approved a draft royal decree in July introducing a specific regime for goods from Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The precise details of the new law will be determined by the government in due course.
Slovenia imposed restrictions on imports from Israeli settlements under its previous government, but the new conservative government reversed them in June 2026.
The EU as a bloc remains deadlocked over whether a ban counts as foreign policy requiring unanimity or trade policy needing only a qualified majority, with ministers not meeting again in a decision-making format until October.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar last year described the push by some European governments to implement the ICJ advisory opinion as “shameful”.
Nearly all of them.
Outside the three European Union states which still have bans in place, settlement goods can be sold legally everywhere, including in most of the EU.
At a July 2026 meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels, which addressed trade from Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories, Germany, Austria, Czechia and Hungary were opposed to an EU-wide ban.
Beyond the EU, the United Kingdom does not forbid trade with illegal Israeli settlements, although new Prime Minister Andy Burnham is reportedly considering a ban. In a recent parliamentary briefing, Amnesty International called on the UK government to implement a ban.
It said: “The argument for a UK ban on trade with settlements is clear. The UK government itself accepts it should take stronger action in response to settlement expansion and annexation. The International Court of Justice has directed states not to trade with Israel in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory; and there is precedent in UK law and policy to not trade with illegally occupied lands, ie Crimea and other illegally occupied parts of Ukraine.”