Indian Companies Complicit in Israel’s Genocide of Palestinians
Sudhanva Deshpande and Vijay Prashad
THE Israeli genocide of Palestinians has been going on for two years – a ‘live-streamed genocide’, as Amnesty International called it in April 2025 in its annual report. Thus far, Israel has murdered over 66,000 Palestinians – the overwhelming majority being civilians, and 20,000 of the dead being children (a Palestinian child has been killed every hour since October 2023). Two million Palestinians in Gaza have had to remain on the move as Israel continues to pummel the small area with missile and bomb attacks, and thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank have faced eviction as part of a broader ethnic cleansing policy pushed by Israel for the entire region between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. During these two years, Israel has violated the sovereignty of seven states (from Lebanon to Qatar), killing uncounted numbers of people in these countries with no official United Nations sanction. This murderous rampage seems to be without end, but it is certainly the case that world opinion has turned almost entirely against Israel. When Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces an International Criminal Court warrant for crimes against humanity, spoke at the United Nations, the hall of the General Assembly was almost empty. Netanyahu is unwelcome in most countries of the planet.
Almost, most. These qualifications are necessary because there remain many countries that continue to provide political support for the Israeli genocide and that continue to provide broad range military support for the mass killings. Two new reports provide the measure of this enduring support for Israel during this genocide. The first report, From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide, came from the office of the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese. Published in June 2025, the report resulted in direct and virulent personal attacks on Albanese – including on her husband, who works at the World Bank. The substance of the report, which will be listed below, did not elicit any rebuttal from the Western governments, which would be hard pressed to respond to the factual claims against the complicity of Western corporations in the genocide. The second report, Profit and Genocide: Indian Investments in Israel, was written by Hajira Puthige of the Centre for Financial Accountability (based in New Delhi). Published in September 2025, the report points its finger directly and with factual detail at the complicity of Indian corporations in the Israeli genocide.
WESTERN SUPPORT
The most important ally of Israel is the United States, whose government continues to provide diplomatic support (the US vetoed a sixth UN Security Council cease genocide resolution in September 2025) and to supply weapons and money to Israel (since October 2023, the US has sent over a thousand weapons shipments to Israel). Apart from the United States, the closest allies of Israel have been the states of Europe, both individually and in the European Union. These states have cracked down on their own citizens for peaceful protests against the genocide and they have made arms deals with Israel (Germany began a major embargo for weapons sales to Israel but simultaneously signed a deal to import €350 million worth of weapons from Israel). While many European states said that they would recognise Palestine, this is already in accord with their agreements regarding the two-state solution; what they have not done is to sanction Israel in any way for its genocide.
Albanese’s report, From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide, showed not only how Western states defended Israel’s genocide but how Western corporations have profited not only from the genocide in Gaza but from the illegal occupation and apartheid across the Israeli landscape (including the Occupied Palestinian Territory). Western companies are no longer merely implicated in the apartheid in the West Bank, which had been previously documented, but they are now embedded in the economy of genocide. The report documented complicity of eight key sectors: arms manufacturers, technology companies, construction companies, mining companies, financial firms, insurance companies, universities, and charitable organisations. Albanese developed a database of 1000 corporate entities but selected only a handful to highlight, such as Amazon, BlackRock, Caterpillar, Google, Lockheed Martin, and Microsoft. Technologies previously used to control and dispossess Palestinians have now been used to inflict mass violence and immense destruction.
Albanese’s report shows that international law does not provide firms with any safe harbour for being complicit in the genocide. She argues that corporate engagement with any component of the genocide is connected with violations of jus cogens (compelling law) norms and international crimes. The International Court of Justice’s provisional measures and the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants ‘signal the risk that corporate entities – and their executives – that engage in the [Occupied Palestinian Territory] are implicated in serious international crimes’, she notes. The UN Special Rapporteur’s report ends with a call for corporations to cease relations with Israel until the occupation and genocide end. Albanese calls for comprehensive sanctions, arms embargos, suspension of trade agreements, and prosecution of corporate executives to pressure the world to stop its support for this genocide.
Indian Support
Over the past few months, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on X, has wished Netanyahu happy birthday and has thanked Netanyahu for wishing him happy birthday. In early September 2025, Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich — member of a far-Right party in Israel and a man who expresses such extreme racism and homophobic views that he is sanctioned by a number of governments in the world, including the UK — led a delegation to Delhi to meet with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. They signed a major bilateral investment agreement to boost trade and investment between the two countries. Sitharaman stressed the need for greater collaboration in ‘cybersecurity, defence, innovation and high-technology’.
A few days later, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel stated unequivocally that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Over the past two years there have been sporadic news reports on India’s continued arms relationship with Israel. Al-Jazeera published reports based on documents that its journalists had seen of recent arms transfers. Albanese’s report documents weapons transfer from a company in Hyderabad to Israel. But beyond these there has been no major study of the Indian complicity in the genocide. That ends with the publication of Puthige’s report by the Centre for Financial Accountability. This report shows in detail the complicity of the Indian billionaire class and their corporations in the genocide. Here are some examples:
1. Adani. Adani-Elbit Advanced Systems India, Ltd. manufactures the Hermes 900 drone, which has been used in Gaza. Adani Ports, which owns Haifa Ports, is therefore the owner of an Israeli navy facility that harbours Israel’s submarine fleet.
2. Tata. Tata Consultancy Group has been working on the Project Nimbus system, which provides surveillance and targeting of Palestinians in Gaza. Tata has sold Israel Land Rover vehicles, which the Israeli military has converted into the MDT David, an armoured vehicle it uses in patrols in the West Bank and in Gaza.
3. Ambani. Reliance Jio has been working closely with Israeli digital firms to build Israel’s digital infrastructure, while Reliance Defence has worked with Rafael Advanced Defence Systems to build missile systems and drones for the Israeli military.
4. Jains. Jain Irrigation, through NaanDanJain, works to supply and build irrigation systems in the illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank of the OPT.
The report provides evidence and data that shows that powerful and influential sections of the Indian capitalist class are directly complicit in the genocide. One of the most effective campaigns against Israel in recent years is the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. This is a fully non-violent, non-sectarian movement which has the support of the entirety of Palestinian civil society. Several large people’s organisations in India have declared their support to BDS, including the All India Kisan Sabha (in 2017) and Students Federation of India (in 2018).
Now is the time to spread the message of BDS far and wide. All organisations and movements which stand against the genocide should openly and publicly declare their support to BDS. Campaigns should be launched with the following focal points:
1. Oppose all artistic and cultural tie ups with Israel, such as film festivals and art exhibitions, and appeal to artists not to participate in them.
2. Build campaigns to pressurise universities and other educational institutions to cut ties with Israeli counterparts.
3. Build trade union and other campaigns against companies doing business with Israel.
4. Build public opinion to get non-BJP parties to pledge support to BDS.
5. Build public opinion to pressurise non-BJP state governments to cut all ties with Israeli entities, including cancelling and rescinding all existing agreements.
It is time to end the genocide.
