Palestine urges companies to review ties with businesses linked to illegal Israeli settlements

Palestine on Tuesday called on companies worldwide to review their relationships with businesses included in the updated UN human rights office’s database of businesses involved in activities linked to illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory, Anadolu reports.

Palestine’s permanent representative to the UN in Geneva welcomed the rights office’s latest update, which lists 214 companies, including 61 newly added businesses.

“It is abundantly clear at this juncture that many enterprises of the 214 among the list are Israeli companies that have links with different companies in many countries around the world,” Ibrahim Khraishi told the UN Human Rights Council.

“Any enterprises cooperating with these Israeli enterprises need to review those relationships,” he said.

The rights office said the updated database covers 214 companies from 11 countries involved in specified settlement-related activities.

The Palestinian envoy welcomed decisions by companies that have withdrawn from settlement-related activities, including some that abandoned previously signed contracts, and called on the UN rights office to update the database annually.

In the update, five previously listed companies were removed after the office found reasonable grounds to believe their involvement in the specified activities had ceased.

Israel was not present in the room when the update was presented to the council and did not exercise its right of reply as the country concerned.

Meanwhile, Spain’s permanent representative to the UN in Geneva accused Israel of “systematically violating those fundamental rights of the civilian population, submitting them to suffering an intolerable dehumanization with military campaigns, aggressions by settler gangs, destruction of homes, of key infrastructure, and the livelihoods in a context of total lack of legal security.”

He urged Israel to comply with UN Security Council resolutions, cooperate with UN human rights mechanisms and fulfill its responsibilities as the occupying power.

“We reiterate our call to the government of Israel to withdraw from all occupied Arab territories, including from the Golan Heights, and to withdraw their military forces from all of Lebanese territory,” he said. “Israel must immediately reverse measures aimed at the de facto annexation of the occupied territories.”

The two-state solution, according to the envoy, is “the only means for achieving a just, lasting peace.”