Francesca Albanese is the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.
The following are from her report to the Human Rights Council of the United Nations during the Fifty-ninth session on 16 June–11 July 2025.

Title:
From economy of occupation to economy of genocide – (A/HRC/59/23) Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.

Summary:
This report investigates the corporate machinery sustaining Israel’s settler-colonial project of displacement and replacement of the Palestinians in the occupied territory. 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. The complicity exposed by this report is just the tip of the iceberg; ending it will not happen without holding the private sector accountable, including its executives. International law recognizes varying degrees of responsibility – each requiring scrutiny and accountability, particularly in this case, where a people’s self-determination and very existence are at stake. This is a necessary step to end the genocide and dismantle the global system that has allowed it.

Introduction:
1. Colonial endeavours and their associated genocides have historically been driven and enabled by the corporate sector.[1] Commercial interests have contributed to the dispossession of Indigenous people and lands[2] – a mode of domination known as “colonial racial capitalism”.[3] The same is true of Israeli colonization of Palestinian lands,[4] its expansion into the occupied Palestinian territory and its institutionalization of a regime of settler-colonial apartheid.[5] After denying Palestinian self-determination for decades, Israel is now imperilling the very existence of the Palestinian people in Palestine.

2. The role of corporate entities in sustaining Israel’s illegal occupation and ongoing genocidal campaign in Gaza is the subject of this investigation, which focuses on how corporate interests underpin Israeli settler-colonial the twofold logic of displacement and replacement aimed at dispossessing and erasing Palestinians from their lands. It discusses corporate entities in various sectors: arms manufacturers, tech firms, building and construction companies, extractive and service industries, banks, pension funds, insurers, universities and charities. These entities enable the denial of self-determination and other structural violations in the occupied Palestinian territory, including occupation, annexation and crimes of apartheid and genocide, as well as a long list of ancillary crimes and human rights violations, from discrimination, wanton destruction, forced displacement and pillage, to extrajudicial killing and starvation.

3. Had proper human rights due diligence been undertaken, corporate entities would have long ago disengaged from Israeli occupation. Instead, post-October 2023, corporate actors have contributed to the acceleration of the displacement-replacement process throughout the military campaign that has pulverized Gaza and displaced the largest number of Palestinians in the West Bank since 1967.[6]

4. While it is impossible to fully capture the scale and extent of decades of corporate connivance in the exploitation of the occupied Palestinian territory, this report exposes the integration of the economies of settler-colonial occupation and genocide. It calls for accountability for corporate entities and their executives at both domestic and international levels: commercial endeavours enabling and profiting from the obliteration of innocent people’s lives must cease. Corporate entities must refuse to be complicit in human rights violations and international crimes or be held to account.