The United Nations has released a damning report naming more than 150 companies, including major global brands such as Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia, and TripAdvisor, for profiting from Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise in the occupied West Bank.
The UN human rights office on Friday updated its database, now listing 158 firms operating inside settlements deemed unlawful by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). While most of the companies are Israeli, the list also includes multinationals registered in the United States, Canada, China, France, and Germany.
The report stresses that businesses have a duty not to fuel abuses. “Where business enterprises identify that they have caused or contributed to adverse human rights impacts, they should provide for or cooperate in remediation through appropriate processes,” it stated.
This year’s update added 68 companies since June 2023, while removing seven firms, including UK-based Opodo and Spanish travel agent eDreams. The majority of those added operate in construction, real estate, mining, and quarrying—sectors central to Israel’s expanding settlement project. More than 300 additional companies remain under review.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk said the findings highlighted corporate accountability in conflict zones. “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,” he noted.
The review comes amid heightened scrutiny of Israel’s occupation and what rights groups describe as apartheid in the West Bank, alongside the ongoing genocide in Gaza since October 2023. Armed settlers, emboldened by state support, have continued terrorizing Palestinian communities—killing civilians, displacing families, and seizing land in what watchdogs call ethnic cleansing.
Settlements have steadily expanded since Israel seized the West Bank in the 1967 war, carving the territory with walls, roads, and checkpoints that confine Palestinians under military rule. A separate UN Commission of Inquiry this week accused Israel of pursuing a deliberate strategy to forcibly displace Palestinians, entrench Jewish-only settlements, and move towards annexation of the West Bank.
Civil society groups argue that the UN database, first mandated by the Human Rights Council in 2016, is a vital tool to pressure companies into withdrawing from settlements. For Palestinians, it serves as further proof of the international machinery sustaining their decades-long dispossession.
Israel and the United States have long criticized the UN for what they claim is a disproportionate focus on Israeli policies. But the new list makes clear that international corporations play a crucial role in enabling Israel’s occupation—and that they too bear responsibility for ongoing violations of international law.