More than 80 human rights organizations have launched a global campaign urging states and companies — particularly in Europe — to ban all trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. The initiative, titled Stop Trade with Settlements, was announced on Monday.
Groups including Oxfam demanded that governments explicitly outlaw commercial dealings with settlements. In a joint statement, they condemned Israel’s accelerated colonization of Palestinian land, citing government approvals for 30,682 housing units in 2023 alone—a 180% surge over five years.
In June 2024, Israel seized and designated 12.7 sq km of Jordan Valley land as “state land.” Less than a year later, its cabinet approved 22 new settlements across the West Bank.
The statement pointed to Israel’s July 2025 Knesset bill, which claimed sovereignty over the West Bank and Jordan Valley, calling them “an inseparable part of the historic homeland of the Jewish people.”
Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich has repeatedly vowed annexation, boasting that 2025 would be “the year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria”—refering to the West Bank in the biblical terms Israel uses to erase the Palestinians' right to the land.
In the US, Republican lawmakers went further in February, introducing mirroring bills to strike the term “West Bank” from official documents, replacing it with Israel's “Judea and Samaria.”
Corporate complicity
The campaign also accused foreign corporations of profiting from Israel’s settlement enterprise. Barclays Bank was named for financing settlement-linked companies, Siemens for building transport infrastructure that entrenches settlements, and French retailer Carrefour for producing and selling goods inside occupied territory. At least nine of Carrefour’s partner stores operate in settlements, two of them under the Carrefour brand.
Rights groups underscored the exploitation of Palestinian labor under an economy engineered by occupation. Around 6,500 Palestinian women work in settlements, 65% of them earning less than $20 a day—without contracts, social protections, or health insurance. Many endure long hours in unsafe conditions. While wages may appear marginally higher than the few alternatives left, organizations stressed this is only because Israel’s settlement policies have systematically destroyed Palestinian livelihoods outside the settlements.
Global trade ties
The call for action comes as boycotts of international firms tied to Israel’s war on Gaza continue to expand. Israel’s assault, launched on Oct. 7, 2023, has spurred campaigns with unprecedented traction in countries such as Egypt and Jordan. Boycotts have reportedly achieved unprecedented impact in states with strong pro-Palestinian sentiment.
Meanwhile, the EU remains Israel’s largest trading partner, accounting for 32% of its goods trade, worth 42bn euros annually. The UK is also a key European ally, with bilateral trade approaching £6bn a year.
