U.N. Releases New List of Companies It Says Do Business With Israeli Settlements Israel condemned the database of firms tied to activity in the occupied West Bank as a “political tool” to advance “a smear campaign.”

The United Nations on Friday released an augmented list of over 200 firms it said were involved in business with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and whose activities it deemed harmful to Palestinians’ right to self-determination.

The move spotlights an issue inflaming tensions between Israel and Western governments imposing sanctions because of extremist violence against Palestinians and the expansion of Israeli settlements considered illegal under international law. The U.N. human rights office in Geneva released the list, first produced in 2020 and updated in 2023 and 2025.

The new list added 61 companies to a database of businesses from 11 countries, bringing the total to 241.

The updated catalog came two weeks after Britain, backed by a dozen other countries mainly from Europe, announced restrictions on trade with the West Bank settlements, which it condemned as threatening any possibility of achieving a two-state solution and have led in some areas to ethnic cleansing, Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said.

The trade restrictions came with a package of measures that shocked Israel and underscored its deepening international isolation over the war in Gaza and the sharp escalation this year in violence by extremist settlers against Palestinians and their property in the West Bank.

The U.N.’s human rights commissioner, Volker Türk, said the list released by his office was “another reminder to companies that they have human rights responsibilities and are expected to conduct due diligence to ensure that they do not become involved in human rights violations or abuses.”