the torture of Palestinian prisoners has become commonplace since October 7, 2023, Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, warned on Wednesday.
‘Since October 7, torture against Palestinian prisoners has become widespread and systematic. Both male and female detainees have been subjected to sexual violence, including rape,’ she said.
Albanese said: ‘This was not only a matter of cruelty: Inflicting severe physical or mental harm on members of a group “as such” is a constitutive element of genocide.
‘How much more evidence do people need to understand what is happening?’
Albanese issued a landmark report last week urging that companies should be prosecuted for enabling Israel to commit war crimes against Palestinians.
Her report listed the names of major firms accused of profiting from Israel’s genocide in Gaza and occupation of stolen Palestinian lands.
She said: ‘The legal framework is strong enough to hold them accountable because, again, the occupation is so unlawful and the red lines have been crossed across the border.
‘But these companies should have pulled out from their engagement with Israel as it was committing such egregious violations of international law, the violation of the right of self-determination of the Palestinians, perpetual occupation, annexation all the more, at the same time, it has pulverised Gaza.
‘So not only have they not disengaged, they have continued to maintain, to support to lend the means, legitimacy, credibility and sometimes profiting themselves from this endeavour, therefore, they must be held accountable.’
Albanese said a number of companies have continued to invest in Israel despite Israel being ‘put on notice’ for committing genocide.
She emphasised: ‘While not all firms are genocide enablers those supplying military tech or profiting from settlements have crossed the line,’ citing Lockheed Martin and Airbnb as examples. The report highlights how corporations profit from Israel’s genocide.
UN expert calls on world to end trade with Israel’s ‘economy of genocide’
She has called for a collective response to pressure or boycott them.
‘I’ve been investigating for one year the genocide. But I did realise throughout 2024 that there were a number of actors without whom Israel would have not been able to commit the acts of genocide it has committed.
‘What is the most precious legacy of my investigation is that it explains a system which could have been seen again, the economy of the occupation, made of entities profiteering from the displacement and replacement of the Palestinians, and also enabling it, lending it funds, and lending legitimacy but then all this has turned into profits.’
Albanese says a number of firms listed have reached out to her in good faith. Those who have engaged I think, have done so bona fide but not to the point of understanding the gravity and the legal framework I was bringing to their attention. ‘I’m not advocating for the end of the market, I’m just saying that the market must follow some rules and when state conduct turns into killing and slaughtering, maiming starving adults and children alike, including babies, we have crossed that red line.’
Albanese’s report names more than 60 companies said to play a role in ‘sustaining Israel’s settler-colonial project’.
Albanese made the comments in a speech to the Human Rights Council in Geneva as she presented her latest report, which named dozens of companies she said were involved in supporting Israeli repression and violence towards Palestinians.
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.
‘There is a prima facie responsibility on every state and corporate entity to completely abstain from or end their relationships with this economy of occupation,’ Albanese said, adding that if the corporate sector had observed proper due diligence, it ‘would have disengaged completely and totally from its entanglement with the Israeli economy’.
Speaking to reporters in Geneva after her speech, Albanese said there were companies and individuals ‘that have profited from the violence, the killing, the maiming, the destruction in Gaza and other parts of the occupied Palestinian territory’
She said that the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange had risen at least 200 per cent in nearly 21 months of war, amassing more than $220bn in market gains, in stark contrast to the miseries inflicted on Palestinians.
‘One people enriched, one people erased,’ she said.
‘Clearly, for some, genocide is profitable.’
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.
Albanese said that arms companies had turned near-record profits by providing Israel with cutting-edge weaponry to unleash 85,000 tonnes of explosives – six times the power of Hiroshima – to devastate Gaza.
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.
The report also named rental platforms Booking and Airbnb, saying they aided illegal settlements by listing properties and hotel rooms in Israeli-occupied territory.
‘What I expose is not a list, it is a system, and that is to be addressed,’ said Albanese.
‘Weapons and data systems brutalise and surveil Palestinians,’ she said in her speech. ‘Colonies spread – financed by banks and insurers, powered by fossil fuels, and normalised by tourism platforms, supermarket chains and academic institutions.’
Albanese has written to each of the 48 companies named in the report to give them the opportunity to respond to the allegations. But only 18 had responded, and only a small number of those did so in good faith.
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 banning the import of goods from settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory.
