(Sept. 26, 2026 / JNS) The United Nations human rights office has added 61 companies to its database of businesses operating in Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem, according to an annual report released Friday.
The Database of Business Enterprises now lists 214 companies from 11 countries. Those named include major firms such as Motorola, as well as travel platforms Airbnb, Booking.com and Tripadvisor. Five entities were removed from the database since last year’s report.
The list is maintained and published by the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, or OHCHR.
The database was established in 2020 under a U.N. Human Rights Council resolution adopted during Michelle Bachelet’s tenure as U.N. high commissioner for human rights. Bachelet, a former president of Chile, withdrew from the race for U.N. secretary-general on Sept. 19, 2026, after receiving the backing of just one of the 15 members of the U.N. Security Council.
“This is a distorted mechanism—created by a deeply flawed body with an automatic majority against Israel. It was established solely to persecute the Jewish state, with no equivalent anywhere else in the world,” the Israeli mission to the U.N. in Geneva said in a statement.
The United Nations does not maintain a comparable blacklist for any other disputed or occupied territory.
The U.N. considers Jewish communities located beyond the 1949 armistice lines to be situated in occupied Palestinian territory.
The database is intended to include companies involved in construction, surveillance, demolitions or the destruction of agricultural land in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem. Despite a mandate for annual updates, the list has been revised only twice before the latest report.
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Of the 596 companies reported for potential violations, approximately 381 have been reviewed.
The Israeli mission described the database as “a political tool employed by the Office of the High Commissioner to advance a smear campaign against business enterprises that committed no wrongdoing.”
U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk said in a statement Friday that the database and its accompanying report serve as a “reminder to companies that they have human rights responsibilities.” Businesses, he added, “are expected to conduct due diligence to ensure that they do not become involved in human rights violations or abuses.”
The companies listed are headquartered or based in Canada, China, France, Germany, Israel, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.
“By amplifying and inflating the so-called ‘database,’ OHCHR plays an active role in compounding the discriminatory treatment of Israel among the human rights bodies,” the Israeli mission said.
“Deterring business enterprises and other entities from operating in conflict-affected territories may in itself promote adverse human rights impacts,” the mission added.
“The stark reality is that the database damages the livelihoods of the population whose rights it ostensibly deems to promote.”