UN blacklist of firms complicit in Israeli settlement activity jumps by 70 percent

The number of businesses listed by the UN as complicit in illegal Israeli settlement activity in the occupied West Bank has increased by 70 percent, with 68 new firms added.

The UN Human Rights Office released an updated list on Friday, naming a total of 158 companies, up from 97 listed in 2023, when the database was last published. 

The database highlights firms involved in activities in the settlements, including providing equipment for construction, demolition and surveillance, and assisting with banking operations. 

UN human rights chief Volker Turk said: “This report underscores the due diligence responsibility of businesses working in contexts of conflict to ensure their activities do not contribute to human rights abuses."

Most of the listed companies are based in Israel, but others are located in several European countries, China, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Newcomers include German-based Heidelberg Materials, Steconfer, a rail systems provider in Portugal, and Ineco, a Spanish transportation engineering company.

Several travel companies, including Expedia Group, Booking Holdings and Airbnb, have remained on the list.

Seven firms listed in 2023 have been removed "as they were no longer involved in any of the activities concerned", the UN Human Rights Office said. 

The UN said it had received submissions concerning 596 businesses after a public call for input last year, but had only been able to review 215 "in the light of available resources and wider liquidity constraints" it faced.

The jump in the number of listed firms comes as observers and rights groups warn of a dramatic escalation in state-backed settler violence displacing Palestinian communities across the West Bank.

At least 2,894 Palestinians have been displaced by settler violence since January 2023, with 740 settler violence incidents recorded between January and June of this year, according to the UN.

Noam Perry, strategic research coordinator for the American Friends Service Committee’s (AFSC) Action Center for Corporate Accountability, welcomed the updated database, noting that it was the first time new companies had been added since its initial publication in 2020. 

"For years, the governments of Israel and the United States have fought tooth and nail against the creation, existence, and maintenance of this database, revealing how much they fear any measure of accountability for Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise in the occupied Palestinian territory," Perry said.

"We applaud the High Commissioner for Human Rights for withstanding these pressures and hope to see this database regularly updated on an annual basis."

Perrty said it was important to remember, that while very important and valuable, the database "is narrowly focused on companies with business activities in illegal Israeli settlements".

"It does not include, for example, weapon manufacturers that supply the Israeli military or companies whose activities support the Israeli apartheid regime as a whole," he said.