By Andrea Tucci,
Last week, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese made headlines across the world for exposing the dozens of companies that she says have profited from Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Albanese’s UN report, “From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide”goes beyond just the typical weapons-manufacturing culprits, and calls out financial institutions, educational institutions, and Big Tech companies. In response, the US Mission to the UN renewed its calls for the UN secretary-general to condemn Albanese and remove her as special rapporteur for human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
The occupation and genocide are highly lucrative for corporations. These include not only the usual arms and ‘defence’ big businesses but also the report shows that the Palestinian territories Israel occupies have functioned as Big Tech’s ideal laboratory and testing ground. No country, for instance, has given as much access to a population’s biometric data as Israel has given to IBM. Since 7th October 2023, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet and Palantir have been expanding their cloud capital services at a breathtaking pace. Face recognition software, target selection algorithms and automated execution systems are being tested in real time, with much less ethical constraints than in the case of experiments on laboratory rats.
Here is the complete list of 48 companies (*) named in the June 2025 United Nations report by Francesca Albanese, “From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide” (A/HRC/59/23), involved in directly or indirectly supporting Israel’s occupation and military operations in the occupied Palestinian territory.
They are grouped by sector for clarity:
Defense & Weapons Manufacturers
These companies supply arms, military technology, and logistics to the Israeli military:
Lockheed Martin
Elbit Systems
Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI)
Rafael Advanced Defense Systems
BAE Systems
Boeing
General Dynamics
Leonardo S.p.A. (Italy)
FANUC Corporation (Japan)
Surveillance, Artificial Intelligence & Technology
Involved in biometric surveillance, cloud computing, AI targeting systems (e.g., Lavender), and intelligence services:
Microsoft
Alphabet Inc. (Google)
Amazon
IBM
Palantir Technologies
Construction, Machinery & Infrastructure
Linked to home demolitions, illegal settlements, and occupation infrastructure:
Caterpillar Inc.
Volvo Group
HD Hyundai (Hyundai Construction Equipment)
Heidelberg Materials AG (via Hanson Israel)
Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF)
Rada Electronic Industries (owned by Leonardo)
Energy & Extractive Industries
Linked to energy production and resource extraction benefiting military operations and settlements:
Chevron
BP
Glencore
Drummond Company
Petrobras
Agritech & Water
Involved in agricultural or water infrastructure that supports settlements or discriminatory systems:
Netafim (via Orbia)
Bright Dairy & Food Co. (via ownership in Tnuva)
Mekorot (Israeli national water company)
Finance, Investment & Insurance
These banks and funds are accused of investing in or financing arms companies and settlement-linked businesses:
Bank of America
Citigroup
Wells Fargo
JPMorgan Chase
BNP Paribas
Barclays
Deutsche Bank
Goldman Sachs
BlackRock
Vanguard
PIMCO
Allianz
AXA
Norwegian Government Pension Fund (GPFG)
Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ)
Logistics, Real Estate & Tourism
Supporting physical infrastructure, settlement logistics, and tourism normalization:
A.P. Moller – Maersk
Atlas Air
Airbnb
Booking.com
Keller Williams Realty
Carrefour
Academia & Research
These academic institutions are reported to be involved in developing dual-use or military AI/robotics with Israel:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Technical University of Munich (TUM)
University of Edinburgh
The following is a list of economists who have expressed strong support for Francesca Albanese, praising her “Report” as a fundamental contribution to understanding the economic policy of the Israeli apartheid state, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, and now their genocide, highlighting the support of multinational corporations in sustaining the apartheid regime, facilitating the ongoing genocide, and criticizing the calls for Albanese’s removal made by the US and Israeli governments, describing them as an attempt to cover up international responsibilities:
Yanis Varoufakis, former Greek finance minister
Thomas Piketty, author of ‘Capital in the Twenty-First Century’
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of ‘The Black Swan’
Michael Hudson, president of the Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET)
Guy Standing, professorial research associate, SOAS University of London
Jayati Ghosh, professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst
Giuseppe Mastruzzo, director of the International University College of Turin (IUC)
Jomo Kwame Sundaram, research advisor at Khazanah Research Institute
Robert H. Wade, professor of Political Economy and Development at London School of Economics and Political Science
Christopher Cramer, professor of the Political Economy of Development at SOAS University of London
Nidhi Srinivas, associate professor of management at Milano School of Policy, Management, and Environment
We should all appreciate Albanese’s commendable courage in denouncing the injustices and countless human rights violations perpetrated against the Palestinian population, a necessary step to end the genocide and dismantle the global system that made it possible.
(*) Source: UN Human Rights Council report
