Economy Of Genocide: A New Report Exposes The Corporations Profiting Off The Genocide In Gaza.

A New UN Report Shows How The Genocide In Gaza Has Been Profitable By A Long List Of War Profiteers.

In every war, a large host of corporate interests, including arms manufacturers, surveillance firms, oil companies, and big banks rake in profit off human suffering.

The most depraved example of this in recent history has been the genocide in Gaza, where arms manufacturers, tech firms, and other corporate interests have profited off the mass slaughter of civilians.

Now, Francesca Albanese, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967 and an expert on international law, has put out a detailed report exposing the wide-ranging corporate sectors around the world that have made money off the genocide in Gaza.

She notes in the report that since Ocotber of 2023, when the genocide in Gaza began, “Entities that previously enabled and profited from Palestinian elimination and erasure within the economy of occupation, instead of disengaging, are now involved in the economy of genocide.”

Military Industrial Complex Profit.

In the report, Albanese notes that “Israeli and international weapons manufacturers have developed increasingly effective systems to drive Palestinians off their land,” writing that they have “refined technologies that enable Israel to intensify oppression, repression and destruction.”

Albanese names the two main military contractors in Israel, “Elbit Systems, established as a public-private partnership and later privatized, and State-owned Israel Aerospace Industries” which she noted, “are among the top 50 arms manufacturers globally”.

She found that “Elbit Systems has cooperated closely on Israeli military operations, embedding key staff in the Ministry of Defense, and was awarded the 2024 Israeli Defense Prize. Elbit Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries provide a critical domestic supply of weaponry, and reinforce Israeli military alliances through arms exports and joint development of military technology.”

She found that the genocide in Gaza has been especially profitable for Elbit Systems and the Israel Aerospace Industries, writing, “For Israeli companies such as Elbit Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries, the ongoing genocide has been a profitable venture. The 65 per cent surge in Israeli military spending from 2023 to 2024 – amounting to $46.5 billion, one of the highest per capita worldwide – generated a sharp surge in their annual profits.”

Turning to America, the report found that the Genocide in Gaza had been most profitable for the military contractor Lockheed Martin, due to Israel’s use of the company’s F-35 fighter jet.

The report noted that “Israel benefits from the largest-ever defence procurement programme – for the F-35 fighter jet, led by United States-based Lockheed Martin”, noting that “Israel was the first to fly the F-35 in combat, in 2018” and reporting that “Lockheed Martin F-35 and F-16 fighter jets, pivotal to the Israeli air force, have significant carrying and fire capacity, including GBU-31 joint direct attack munition (JDAM) and unguided MK-84s 2000-pound bombs; an F-35 can carry over 18,000 pounds of bombs”.

She found that the F-35 and F-16 jets from Lockeed Martin have played a pivotal role in the slaughter in Gaza, writing “Post-October 2023, F-35s and F-16s have been integral to equipping Israel with the unprecedented aerial power to drop an estimated 85,000 tons of bombs, much of it unguided, to kill and injure more than 179,411 Palestinians and obliterate Gaza”.

The report noted that the “Prolonged occupation and repeated military campaigns” in Gaza have “provided testing grounds for cutting-edge military capabilities” including “the F-35 programme led by the United States of America”.

Pictured Above: Benjamin Netanyahu stands next to an F-35 fighter jet.

Albanese also lists Japanese and Danish companies for providing material to Israeli arms companies, writing that “suppliers such as the Japanese FANUC Corporation provide robotic machinery for weapons production lines, including for Israel Aerospace Industries, Elbit Systems and Lockheed Martin” and “Shipping companies such as the Danish A.P. Moller – Maersk A/S transport components, parts, weapons and raw materials, sustaining a steady flow of United States-supplied military equipment post October 2023”.

She also names MIT (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) for providing research towards the Israeli Elbit Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries, writing “Components and parts constructed globally contribute to the Israeli Drones largely developed and supplied by Elbit Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries have long flown alongside fighter jets, surveilling Palestinians and delivering target intelligence. In the past two decades, with support from these companies and collaborations with institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, drones used by Israel acquired automated weapons systems and the ability to fly in swarm formation.”

Tech Companies Building An Israeli Surveillance State

Along with exposing the military-industrial complex’s role in using the Gaza genocide to test equipment, the report exposes tech companies using the genocide to test surveillance tools.

The report noted that “Repression of Palestinians has become progressively automated, with tech companies providing dual-use infrastructure to integrate mass data collection and surveillance, while profiting from the unique testing ground for military technology offered by the occupied Palestinian territory”.

Albanese found that “United States tech giants” have helped Israel develop, “unparalleled developments in carceral and surveillance services, from closed-circuit television (CCTV) networks, biometric surveillance, advanced tech checkpoint networks, ‘smart walls’ and drone surveillance to cloud computing, artificial intelligence and data analytics supporting on-the-ground military personnel.”

She exposed how ex-members of Israel’s Unit 8200 developed the Pegasus spyware, used for the repression of Palestinians and sold to other governments around the world for repression and surveillance.

As she writes, “Israeli tech firms often grow out of military infrastructure and strategy, as the NSO Group, founded by ex-Unit 8200 members, did. Its Pegasus spyware, designed for covert smartphone surveillance, has been used against Palestinian activists and licensed globally to target leaders, journalists, and human rights defenders”.

She notes that the American tech company IBM has helped build this surveillance state, writing “IBM has operated in Israel since 1972, training military and intelligence personnel – especially from Unit 8200 – for the technology sector and start-up scene. Since 2019, IBM Israel has operated and upgraded the central database of the Population and Immigration Authority, enabling collection, storage, and governmental use of biometric data on Palestinians, and supporting the discriminatory permit regime of Israel”.

The report also names Microsoft, Alphabet Inc., and Amazon.com for getting contracts in Israel that have allowed them to build the Orwellian Surveillance state.

As she wrote, “Microsoft has been active in Israel since 1991, developing its largest centre outside the United States. Its technologies are embedded in the prison service, police, universities and schools – including in colonies. Microsoft has been integrating its systems and civilian tech across the Israeli military since 2003, while acquiring Israeli cybersecurity and surveillance start-ups.As Israeli apartheid, military and population-control systems generate increasing volumes of data, its reliance on cloud storage and computing has grown. In 2021, Israel awarded Alphabet Inc. (Google) and Amazon.com, Inc. a $1.2 billion contract (Project Nimbus) – largely funded through Ministry of Defense expenditure – to provide core tech infrastructure.”

She also noted that the three tech giants “grant Israel virtually government-wide access to their cloud and artificial intelligence technologies,” noting that this has the effect of “enhancing data processing, decision making, and surveillance and analysis capacities”.

She noted that “In July 2024, an Israeli colonel described cloud tech as a weapon in every sense of the word, citing these companies”.

Albanese documented Israel’s Orwellian use of AI to choose targets in Gaza, writing “The Israeli military has developed artificial intelligence systems, such as ‘Lavender’, ‘Gospel’ and ‘Where’s Daddy?’ to process data and generate lists of targets, reshaping modern warfare and illustrating the dual-use nature of artificial intelligence.”

For context, last year, the Israeli magazine 972 reported that Israel relied on Lavender AI technology to generate “kill lists”, “with no requirement to thoroughly check why the machine made those choices or to examine the raw intelligence data on which they were based.”

The “Where’s Daddy” software uses AI technology to help the IDF in targeting civilians. As the paper wrote, “Additional automated systems, including one called ‘Where’s Daddy?’ were used specifically to track the targeted individuals and carry out bombings when they had entered their family’s residences”.

The report noted the role of Palantir technologies in aiding Israel with their predictive policing AI, writing “Palantir Technologies Inc., whose tech collaboration with Israel long predates October 2023, expanded its support to the Israeli military post-October 2023. There are reasonable grounds to believe Palantir has provided automatic predictive policing technology, core defence infrastructure for rapid and scaled-up construction and deployment of military software, and its Artificial Intelligence Platform, which allows real-time battlefield data integration for automated decision-making”.

She documented Palantir’s profiting from the genocide in Gaza and connections to Israel, which I wrote about in a previous article- writing:

In January 2024, Palantir announced a new strategic partnership with Israel and held a board meeting in Tel Aviv “in solidarity”; in April 2025, Palantir’s Chief Executive Officer responded to accusations that Palantir had killed Palestinians in Gaza by saying, “mostly terrorists, that’s true”. Both incidents are indicative of executive-level knowledge and purpose vis-à-vis the unlawful use of force by Israel, and failure to prevent such acts or withdraw involvement.

Pictured Above: Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel (left), President of Israel, Issac Herzog (Middle), and Palantir co-founder Alex Karp (right) meeting in Tel-Aviv before the company’s first board meeting of 2024.

Construction Companies Profiting Off Destruction.

The report also documents Israel's use of the IDF Caterpillar D9 bulldozer, provided by the American construction company Caterpillar Inc., to destroy Palestinian homes and infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza.

Albanese writes, “For decades, Caterpillar Inc. has provided Israel with equipment used to demolish Palestinian homes and infrastructure, through both the United States Foreign Military Financing programme and an exclusive licensee requisitioned by Israeli law into the military”.

She found that “In partnership with companies such as Israel Aerospace Industries, Elbit Systems and Leonardo DRS, Inc.-owned RADA Electronic Industries, Israel has evolved Caterpillar’s D9 bulldozer into automated, remote-commanded core weaponry of the military, deployed in almost every military activity since 2000, clearing incursion lines, ‘neutralizing’ the territory and killing Palestinians.”

She noted that these militarized bulldozers have been used extensively throughout the genocide in Gaza, writing “Since October 2023, Caterpillar equipment has been documented as being used to carry out mass demolitions – including of homes, mosques, and life-sustaining infrastructure – raid hospitals and burying alive wounded Palestinians”.

Despite this, she found that “In 2025, Caterpillar secured a further multi-million dollar contract with Israel.”

Pictured Above: The IDF’s Caterpillar D9 bulldozer, provided by Caterpillar Inc.

She also listed the Korean HD Hyundai and the Swedish Volvo Group for providing technology used for the destruction of Palestinian civilian infrastructure, including since the genocide began, despite the IDF hiding the companies’ logos, writing:

The Korean HD Hyundai and its partially owned subsidiary, Doosan, alongside the Swedish Volvo Group and other major heavy machinery manufacturers, have long been linked to the destruction of Palestinian property, each supplying equipment through exclusively licensed Israeli dealers. Volvo’s licensee is an OHCHR database-listed company and together they own Merkavim Transportation Technologies Ltd., which produces armoured buses sold to service colonies. Since at least 2007, Volvo machinery has been used to raze Palestinian areas, including in East Jerusalem and Masafer Yatta. For over a decade, HD Hyundai machinery has been used to demolish Palestinian homes and raze farmland, including olive groves. After October 2023, Israel increased the use of the equipment of those companies in the urban destruction of Gaza, including in flattening Rafah and Jabalia, after which the military obscured their logos.

The report notes that “These companies have continued supplying the Israeli market despite abundant evidence of the criminal use of this machinery by Israel and repeated calls from human rights groups to sever ties”.

She also found that these companies’ equipment has also been used to construct illegal settlements in the West Bank, writing “Caterpillar, HD Hyundai and Volvo excavators and heavy equipment have been used in the construction of illegal colonies for at least 10 years”.

She also listed the German company German Heidelberg Materials’s role in the planning of settlement expansion in the West Bank through its subsidiary Hanson Israel, writing “The German Heidelberg Materials AG, through its subsidiary Hanson Israel, has contributed to the pillage of millions of tons of dolomite rock from the Nahal Raba quarry on land seized from Palestinian villages in the West Bank. In 2018, Hanson Israel won a public tender to supply materials from that quarry for colony construction, and has since nearly exhausted the quarry, prompting ongoing expansion requests.”

Energy Sector Profits.

Albanese documented the companies providing “coal, gas, oil and fuel” to Israel, which she wrote “are contributing to civilian infrastructures that Israel uses to entrench permanent annexation and now weaponizes in the destruction of Palestinian life in Gaza.20” and noted that “The same infrastructure that these companies supply resources into has serviced the Israeli military and its energy-intensive tech-driven obliteration of Gaza.”

She noted that the primary coal imports to Israel come from the American Drummond Company and the Swiss Glencore PLC, writing “Coal for electricity to Israel originates primarily from Colombia (60 percent of Israeli coal imports in 2023-24); United States-headquartered Drummond Company, Inc. and the Swiss-based Glencore PLC are the primary suppliers. Their respective subsidiaries own the mines and the three ports involved in the delivery of 15 coal shipments to Israel since October 2023, including six shipments after Colombia suspended coal exports to Israel in August 2024.”

She noted that the American Chevron corporation is Israel's primary Oil Supplier, writing “Chevron’s consortium supplies more than 70 per cent of Israeli energy consumption. Chevron also profits from its part-ownership of the East Mediterranean Gas pipeline, which passes through Palestinian maritime territory, and from gas export sales to Egypt and Jordan.”

She also found that Chevron and the British oil company BP PLC “are also the largest contributors to Israeli imports of crude oil, as major owners of the strategic Azeri Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline and the Kazakh Caspian Pipeline Consortium, respectively, and of their associated oil fields.”

She noted that this has been used to fuel the genocide in Gaza, including the Israeli military, writing “Each conglomerate effectively supplied 8 per cent of Israeli crude oil between October 2023 and July 2024, supplemented by crude oil shipments from Brazilian oil fields, in which Petrobras ( a Brazilian state owned energy company) holds the largest stakes, and military jet fuel. Oil from these companies supplies two refineries in Israel. From the Haifa refinery, two OHCHR database-listed companies supply their petrol stations throughout Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory, including the colonies, and the military, through government-awarded contracts.”

Financial Sector Profits

As Albanese writes, “The financial sector channels critical funding to both State and corporate actors behind the Israeli occupation and apartheid, despite many companies in the sector committing to the Principles for Responsible Investment and the United Nations Global Compact.”

She noted that the French Bank BNP Paribas, UK Bank Barclays, and American investment firms BlackRock, Vanguard and PIMCO have all profited from Israeli war bonds during the genocide, writing:

As the main source of finance for the Israeli State budget, treasury bonds have played a critical role in funding the ongoing assault on Gaza. From 2022 to 2024, the Israeli military budget grew from 4.2 percent to 8.3 per cent of GDP, driving the public budget into a 6.8 percent deficit. Israel funded this ballooning budget by increasing its bond issuance, including $8 billion in March 2024 and $5 billion in February 2025, alongside issuances on its domestic new shekel market. Some of the world’s largest banks, including BNP Paribas and Barclays, stepped in to boost market confidence by underwriting these international and domestic treasury bonds, allowing Israel to contain the interest rate premium, despite a credit downgrade. Asset management firms – including Blackrock ($68 million), Vanguard ($546 million) and Allianz’s asset management subsidiary PIMCO ($960 million)256 – were among at least 400 investors from 36 countries who purchased them. Meanwhile, the Development Corporation for Israel (i.e., Israel Bonds) provides a bond solicitation service for the Government of Israel for overseas private individuals and other investors. The Development Corporation for Israel tripled its annual bond sales to funnel nearly $5 billion to Israel since October 2023,while offering investors the option of sending the return on bond investments to charitable organizations supporting the Israeli military and the colonies

Another investigation from the Netherlands-based financial research group Profundo found that “Israel issued sovereign bonds between October 7th, 2023 and January 2025 with a total value of $19.4 billion” and multiple big banks “underwrote these bonds for the Israeli state”, including the American Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase.

Pictured Above: A List of Israeli bond underwriters from October 7th, 2023 - January 2025 via BankTrack.

The NGO “BankTrack” noted that these bonds were sold specifically to fund the genocide in Gaza, writing:

Although Israel’s sovereign debt is generally added to the overall state budget, reports confirm that more recent bonds were specifically issued to cover the costs of its war on Gaza. In February last year, Ministry of Finance officials confirmed the country would need to sell ‘near-record amount of bonds’ in 2024 to continue financing its war effort. Israel Bonds, the government-affiliated body responsible for marketing Israel’s bonds to international investors, specifically advertises these bonds as opportunities to support ‘Israel at War’. By underwriting and bringing Israel’s ‘war bonds’ to market, the seven banks identified in Profundo’s investigation therefore facilitated crucial financing enabling Israel to continue its war on Gaza.

Similarly, Albanese notes that the American investment firms BlackRock and Vanguard invested heavily in all of the American corporations already listed in the report as profiting from the genocide in Gaza. As she writes:

These financial entities channel billions of dollars into treasury bonds and companies directly involved in Israeli occupation and genocide. Blackrock (and its subsidiary, iShares263) and Vanguard are among the largest institutional investors in many companies, holding these shares for distribution among their indexes of mutual funds and electronically traded funds (ETFs). Blackrock is the second largest institutional investor in Palantir (8.6 per cent), Microsoft (7.8 percent), Amazon.com (6.6 per cent), Alphabet (6.6 per cent) and IBM (8.6 per cent), and third largest in Lockheed Martin (7.2 per cent) and Caterpillar (7.5 per cent); Vanguard is the largest institutional investor in Caterpillar (9.8 per cent), Chevron (8.9 per cent) and Palantir (9.1 per cent), and second largest in Lockheed Martin (9.2 per cent) and Elbit Systems (2.0 per cent)

Genocide Profiteers.

While Arms Manufacturers, Banks, Oil companies, and the Tech Sector have long profited off wars, this new important report from Francesca Albanese shows that there is no low, including a genocide, which they won’t go for profit.

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