Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, on Thursday called on every country to cut off all trade and financial ties with the Israeli “economy of genocide”.
She also pushed for an arms embargo on Israel and withdrawal of international support for the predominantly Jewish country during a speech to the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Al Jazeera reported.
The council responded to her calls with a round of applause, reports Reuters.
At the time, she was presenting her latest report, which named 60 companies for being involved in supporting Israeli repression and violence towards Palestinians.
"What I expose is not a list, it is a system, and that is to be addressed," she told the council.
"We must reverse the tide," she added, calling for states to impose a full arms embargo, suspend all trade agreements and ensure companies face legal consequences for their involvement in violations of international law.
“The situation in the occupied Palestinian territory is apocalyptic,” she said. “Israel is responsible for one of the cruellest genocides in modern history.”
Nearly 57,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel since the war, now in its 22nd month began, hundreds of thousands have been displaced multiple times, cities and towns have been razed, hospitals and schools targeted, and 85 percent of the besieged and bombarded enclave is now under Israeli military control, according to the UN.
‘Economy of genocide’
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.
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.
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.
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.
“What I expose is not a list, it is a system, and that is to be addressed,” said Albanese.
Source: Daily Sun(Citing different agencies)
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