Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, has called on countries to cut off all trade and financial ties with Israel, including a full arms embargo, and withdraw international support for what she termed an “economy of genocide”.
Albanese made the comments in a speech to the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Thursday as she presented her latest report, which named dozens of companies she said were involved in supporting Israeli repression and violence towards Palestinians.
“The situation in the occupied Palestinian territory is apocalyptic,” she said. “Israel is responsible for one of the cruellest genocides in modern history.”
Nearly 57,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel since the war, now in its 22nd month began, hundreds of thousands have been displaced multiple times, cities and towns have been razed, hospitals and schools targeted, and 85 percent of the besieged and bombarded enclave is now under Israeli military control, according to the UN.
‘Economy of genocide’
The report, titled From economy of occupation to economy of genocide, detailed what it described as “the corporate machinery sustaining Israel’s settler-colonial project of displacement and replacement of the Palestinians in the occupied territory”.
The report singled out companies, including arms manufacturers, tech giants, heavy machinery companies and financial institutions, for their “complicity” in Israel’s repression of Palestinians, from sustaining Israeli expansion on occupied land to enabling the surveillance and killing of Palestinians.
The report said that while political leaders had been shirking their responsibilities to pressure Israel to halt its bloodshed in Gaza, “far too many corporate entities have profited from Israel’s economy of illegal occupation, apartheid and now, genocide”.
It called on the international community to “hold the private sector accountable” for companies’ complicity in Israel’s abuses, by ensuring they faced legal consequences for their involvement in violations of international law.
Military ‘backbone’ of the Israeli state
The UN report described the military-industrial complex as “the economic backbone” of the Israeli state, saying that Israel’s prolonged occupation and repeated military campaigns had provided testing grounds for cutting-edge military technology, from air defence platforms and drones, to AI-enabled targeting tools and the F-35 fighter jet programme.
The F-35 programme is led by United States-based Lockheed Martin, but components are constructed globally, including by Italian manufacturer Leonardo SpA. The report also named Israeli companies Elbit Systems and IAI for their role in developing drones.
It also named Japan’s FANUC Corporation for providing robotic machinery for weapons production lines, as well as shipping companies like Denmark’s A P Moller–Maersk for “sustaining a steady flow of US-supplied military equipment” to Israel throughout its war on Gaza.
The report also highlighted the role of the tech sector, saying giants like Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon played an integral part in enabling Israel’s mass-surveillance systems.
IBM has also been responsible for training military and intelligence personnel, as well as managing a central database storing the biometric data of Palestinians, while US company Palantir Technologies has expanded its support to the Israeli military since the start of the war on Gaza, the report said.
It also pointed to heavy machinery companies like the US’s Caterpillar Inc, South Korea’s Hyundai and Sweden’s Volvo Group for providing equipment linked to the destruction of Palestinian property.
“What I expose is not a list, it is a system, and that is to be addressed,” said Albanese, an independent expert mandated by the UN to document abuses.
Israel: Report ‘groundless’
Albanese’s speech was received with applause from delegates in Geneva, with Ireland’s ambassador to the UN, Noel White, saying that his government was progressing with legislation prohibiting the import of goods from settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory.
Israel’s diplomatic mission in Geneva did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Albanese’s speech, the Reuters news agency reported.
Earlier this week, it described Albanese’s report as “legally groundless, defamatory and a flagrant abuse of her office”.
Israel has rejected accusations of genocide in Gaza – for which it is under investigation at the International Criminal Court of Justice (ICJ), and which numerous genocide experts have confirmed Israel is carrying out – citing its right to self-defence following the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.
The case first filed by South Africa at the ICJ in December 2023, and then joined by other countries, accuses Israel of violating its obligations under the Genocide Convention in its war on the Gaza Strip.
