The UN Human Rights Office said Friday that it had removed 15 companies from its blacklist of firms that do business in Israeli settlements in the Palestinian occupied territories. However, 122 firms still remain, the UN office’s spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said during a press briefing.
The update followed a long-awaited review, which Shamdasani said had been only partial — the office had only been able to check the original list of 112 companies that it issued in 2020 and did not look at any potential new companies.
The vast majority of the firms on the updated list — 105 — were still based in Israel, though 17 international businesses, such as Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia, TripAdvisor and Motorola, are also included. US-based General Mills food processing company and Indorama Ventures in Thailand were the only international firms removed from the list. Notably, 15 Israeli firms stopped doing business in the settlements
“Those of you who have been following this issue closely will recall that the UN Human Rights Council, in a resolution in 2016, mandated our Office to produce a database of business enterprises involved in such activities. We subsequently issued a report in 2018 on the methodology used, and then a report in 2020 containing the database itself,” said the Spokesperson in a statement.
The UN Human Rights Office’s spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasan (Photo: UN Human Rights Office)
In addition, the European Parliament said on Thursday that Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories are illegal under international law, demanding their immediate end. In a vote of 41 in favor, 24 against with 9 abstentions, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament adopted a set of recommendations on how the European Union (EU) should continue to engage with the Palestinian Authority (PA).
The recommendations, which will be submitted for approval by the European Parliament as a whole, with the plenary vote scheduled for July, stress that the EU should consider targeted measures specifically addressing settlement expansion in the West Bank, among other recommendations.
“Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) continue to state that Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories are illegal under international law and demand their immediate end. Pointing out that these settlements constitute a major obstacle to the viability of the two-state solution, including lasting peace and security, MEPs call for new efforts to end the latest cycle of settlement-related violence and say the EU should consider targeted measures specifically addressing settlement expansion in the West Bank,” said the MEPs in their statement.
MEPs also asked the EU to commission a legal opinion assessing the political and economic consequences of the Israeli move to transfer broad authority over civilian issues in the West Bank to the Israeli Finance Minister, which would enable the deepening of Israel’s presence on the Palestinian territories.
Related: https://maki.org.il/en/?p=21864
