672 European financial institutions have financial relationships with 50 companies actively involved in illegal Israeli settlements. A Belgian company, Solvay, is cited. BNP Paribas, for its part, is the largest European creditor of these companies. These are the conclusions of the Don’t buy into occupation report published by a coalition of 25 organizations including the CNCD-11.11.11.
BETHLEHEM—Israeli settlements, their maintenance and expansion are illegal under international law and constitute acts which engage individual criminal responsibility as war crimes and crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (CPI). International humanitarian law (IHL), in accordance with the Fourth Geneva Convention, prohibits the occupying power from the forcible transfer and deportation, individual or collective, of protected persons, as well as the transfer of part of its own civilian population to the territory it occupies. In addition, the confiscation of land for the purpose of building or expanding settlements in occupied territory is also prohibited, while the extensive destruction and appropriation of property for the benefit of settlements violates a number of provisions of international humanitarian law. , as they appear in the Hague Regulations of 1907, the Fourth Geneva Convention and customary international humanitarian law.
In addition, Israeli settlements have resulted in a myriad of human rights violations against the protected Palestinian population, while fragmenting the West Bank and isolating it from Jerusalem, and making sustainable and independent social and economic development impossible. for Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (oPt). As evidenced by legal experts and human rights organizations, settlements are also a key part of the apartheid regime applied by Israel over the Palestinian people, in which Israel administers the territory under two legal systems and two sets of laws. Entirely separate institutions: a civilian administration for Israeli Jewish communities living in illegal settlements on the one hand, and a military administration for the occupied Palestinian population living in Palestinian towns and villages on the other.
Israeli, European and international business enterprises that operate with or provide services to Israeli settlements play a vital role in facilitating the functioning and growth of settlements. In view of the illegality of the settlements, the wide range of violations of international humanitarian law associated with them, the serious negative repercussions on the human rights of the Palestinian population and the hindrance to the development of the Palestinian economy, the actors private individuals have a responsibility to ensure that they are not involved in violations of international law and are not complicit in international crimes, and to remedy any negative human rights impacts arising from their activities and business relationships . However, despite its illegal nature, European financial institutions continue to invest billions in Israeli colonization.
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