UN Expert Exposes Corporate Complicity in Israel’s War on Palestinians

 From Occupation to Genocide

July 2, 2025

In a report described as “a searing indictment of corporate profiteering from atrocity,” United Nations Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese has delivered one of the most meticulous and damning assessments yet of the machinery sustaining Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestine—arguing that it has now evolved into an "economy of genocide."

Presented during the 59th session of the UN Human Rights Council under Agenda Item 7, Albanese’s report, titled "From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide," goes beyond conventional diplomatic framing. It draws a direct line from settler-colonial displacement to the industrial-scale destruction currently unfolding in Gaza and the West Bank—naming over 60 corporations, including global giants in arms, tech, construction, and energy, as key enablers.

“While political leaders and governments shirk their obligations, far too many corporate entities have profited from Israel’s economy of illegal occupation, apartheid and now, genocide,” Albanese writes.

A Colonial Blueprint Turned Profitable Enterprise

Albanese grounds her analysis in a historic trajectory of dispossession. From the early role of the Jewish National Fund in engineering Arab Palestinian removal, to the acceleration of land theft after 1967, Israel’s settler-colonial model has always relied on material and technological infrastructure. But the report warns that this infrastructure is no longer just about occupation—it has transformed into a system of “calculated destruction” targeting an entire people.

According to the report, Gaza has become a laboratory for high-tech warfare, while the occupied West Bank is being hollowed out through home demolitions, farmland destruction, and economic strangulation.

This transformation is being driven by eight interlocking corporate sectors that support what Albanese calls the “displacement-replacement” economy—now operating on genocidal terms.

Militarized Elimination: Arms as the Engine of Genocide

Israel’s military-industrial complex, the report notes, is both a domestic economic backbone and a global supplier. Israeli companies like Elbit Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) have not only embedded their staff within Israel’s Ministry of Defense but have also provided critical weapons used in Gaza’s destruction.

Between October 2023 and mid-2025, Israel dropped an estimated 85,000 tons of bombs on Gaza, killing or injuring over 179,000 people. Much of that firepower came from Lockheed Martin’s F-35 and F-16 jets, Leonardo S.p.A., and other multinationals involved in the US-led F-35 program.

Far from disengaging, these firms have expanded operations. Elbit Systems saw record profits amid a 65% surge in Israeli military spending, while Palantir Technologies, a U.S. defense tech firm, provided battlefield AI systems and predictive policing tools used to identify and kill Palestinians en masse.

Tech Apartheid: Surveillance as a Weapon of Control

Albanese reserves special scrutiny for the tech sector, highlighting how companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet (Google), and IBM are deeply entangled in Israel’s population control regime.

The 2021 "Project Nimbus" deal, worth $1.2 billion, handed Israeli authorities unprecedented access to cloud computing and AI tools. During the early days of the 2023 Gaza assault, these technologies became essential to military operations. In the words of an Israeli colonel in July 2024, cloud infrastructure from Microsoft and Google became “a weapon in every sense of the word.”

Meanwhile, spyware like Pegasus, developed by NSO Group, was deployed not only against Palestinian activists but also against journalists and officials globally.

Bulldozers of Erasure: Civilian Machinery as Instruments of War

Heavy machinery companies such as Caterpillar, Volvo, and Hyundai were found complicit in what Albanese terms the "ungrounding" of Palestinians. These firms supplied bulldozers and excavators for demolishing homes, public buildings, mosques, and agricultural land—turning Gaza’s landscape into ruins.

Caterpillar’s D9 bulldozers, militarized with remote-control capabilities and armor plating, have become icons of destruction. Since October 2023, their equipment has been used in hospital raids, home demolitions, and even to crush people alive, the report says.

Fueling Genocide: Energy and Resource Control

Beyond bombs and surveillance, the report details how Israel weaponizes basic utilities—water, electricity, and fuel—as tools of war. Companies like Chevron, BP, Glencore, and Drummond Company Inc. supply coal, gas, and crude oil that power Israel’s integrated energy grid, even as Gaza suffers near-total blackouts.

The Israeli national water company Mekorot runs a near-monopoly in both Gaza and the West Bank, selling Palestinians water drawn from their own aquifers at inflated prices. Post-October 2023, some areas of Gaza went without water 95% of the time.

Real Estate on Ruins: Building Colonies While Gaza Burns

While Gaza’s neighborhoods are leveled, the report documents a boom in illegal settlement construction in the West Bank, with 57 new outposts established between November 2023 and October 2024. Companies like Keller Williams Realty, Heidelberg Materials, and Basque-based CAF have helped build and sell homes, extract Palestinian resources, and develop transportation infrastructure linking colonies to Israel proper—while excluding Palestinians.

Corporate Complicity and Legal Consequences

Albanese’s report does more than name names. It calls for immediate legal action against the executives of companies complicit in international crimes. She argues that corporate actors—like governments—bear varying degrees of responsibility under international law, and must be scrutinized and held accountable.

“The complicity exposed by this report is just the tip of the iceberg,” she writes. “Ending it will not happen without holding the private sector accountable.”

Global Response: Pushback and Polarization

Predictably, the report has sparked fierce political reaction. The United States called for Albanese’s dismissal, while Israel branded the report “defamatory” and “a flagrant abuse” of her UN mandate.

But human rights advocates welcomed it as a landmark document that pierces the veil of corporate neutrality and exposes the profit motives sustaining an illegal and violent occupation.

“While life in Gaza is being obliterated and the West Bank is under escalating assault,” Albanese wrote, “this report shows why Israel’s genocide continues: because it is lucrative for many.”

The Business of Genocide Must End

Albanese’s report demands a paradigm shift: treating corporate enablers of atrocity as culpable actors in a global system of violence. The report is not merely a condemnation of Israel’s actions—it is a detailed map of an international economy that profits from apartheid, occupation, and now, the destruction of a people. It is a call not only to conscience, but to law. And if the world fails to act, the report warns, genocide will not just remain possible—it will remain profitable.

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Read the full report: UN Document A/HRC/59/23