ISTANBUL
Financing is the primary driver of Israel’s settlement building and a key factor enabling illegal settlers to entrench themselves across the occupied Palestinian territories, particularly in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
Settlement construction intensified immediately after Israel occupied the West Bank in the June 1967 Middle East War, but the mechanisms behind its funding rarely surface in official or private Israeli media.
One exception is the public budgets allocated by successive Israeli governments to build new settlement units, a policy aimed at entrenching the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and erasing its Palestinian identity.
Most settler movements and associations do not disclose their budgets or foreign funding sources. However, Israeli media - especially left-leaning outlets such as Haaretz - and international human rights organizations occasionally publish reports identifying funding channels.
Israel has continued settlement construction for decades despite repeated UN calls to halt the practice, which the international body deems illegal and a direct threat to a two-state solution.
Against the backdrop of ongoing Israeli military operations and settlement expansion, Anadolu focuses in this factbox on foreign financial support behind the settlement enterprise.
Companies
On Sept. 26, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights updated its database of companies operating in Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The list includes 158 companies: 138 Israeli and 20 foreign firms, from Canada, China, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, the UK and the US.
Most foreign companies operate in construction, real estate, tourism, travel and mining.
The US tops the list, with six major firms: Airbnb, Booking Holdings, Expedia Group, Motorola Solutions, Re/Max Holdings and TripAdvisor – all providing services ranging from tourism and online booking to communications and real estate.
Spain has four companies tied to construction, infrastructure and rail: ACS, CAF, Ineco and SEMI.
The list also includes French engineering firms Egis and Egis Rail, and two British companies: Greenkote P.L.C. and JCB, the latter known for its heavy machinery used in construction projects.
Also listed are companies from Luxembourg (Altice International), the Netherlands (Booking.com B.V.), Germany (Heidelberg Materials AG), Portugal (Steconfer S.A.), China (Fosun International Ltd) and Canada (Metrontario Investments Ltd).
Banks
A May 28, 2018 report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) found that most major Israeli banks provide services that support, sustain and expand settlements in the occupied West Bank.
HRW said Israel’s seven largest banks help fund settlement building, secure ownership in new construction projects, and manage those projects until completion - activities that facilitate the relocation of Israeli settlers into the occupied territory.
These seven banks are: Hapoalim, Leumi, Discount, Mizrahi Tefahot, First International Bank of Israel, Union Bank of Israel and Bank of Jerusalem.
The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), based in France, reported in March 2017 that four French banks and one French insurance company indirectly contribute to settlement construction through partnerships with Israeli financial institutions operating in the settlements.
The banks are: BNP Paribas, Société Générale, Crédit Agricole and BPCE, while AXA handles insurance.
FIDH said these relationships help expand settlements and build housing units exclusively for Israeli settlers, harming the economic and social rights of Palestinians.
-Large donations
Right-wing Israeli organizations - especially settler groups - receive large foreign donations, according to a Haaretz report on Dec. 7, 2015.
More than 50 US Jewish organizations transferred over 1 billion shekels (around $220 million) to illegal settlers in the West Bank between 2009 and 2013.
These donations are tax-exempt in the US, which a Globes report on Feb. 2, 2015 said reflects US support for settlement activity.
Funding is not limited to settlement construction; significant amounts support extreme religious education, such as the Neve Shmuel school in the Efrat settlement, and assist families of illegal settlers convicted of attacks on Palestinians, according to the report.
Entities and individuals
Major foreign donors include the Central Fund of Israel, based in Manhattan, and the Hebron Fund in Brooklyn, which transferred around $4.5 million to Hebron settlements between 2009 and 2013, Haaretz said.
Other major funding bodies, according to a report by Israel Hayom on Dec. 31, 2020, include Keren Hayesod, active in 45 countries, established by the World Zionist Organization to raise money for Zionist projects such as Jewish immigration and settlement building.
Also involved are the Jewish Agency, Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (army) in Miami, the European Jewish Development Fund, and the Ruth Bat Sarah Foundation, backed by US billionaire Ira Rennert.
Between 2006 and 2013, the US-based Friends of Ir David organization alone donated around 122 million shekels (about $31.6 million), Haaretz reported on March 6, 2016.
Funding is not limited to American Jews. Wealthy donors from multiple countries contribute - including Roman Abramovich, the former Chelsea Football Club owner, who has ties to the Yesha Council (municipal council of Jewish settlements in the West Bank) and the extremist Elad association.
Israeli associations
One of the most prominent illegal settler groups receiving foreign funds is Elad, founded by David Be’eri in September 1986.
Israel Hayom reported on Dec. 31, 2020 that this funding enabled Elad to reshape parts of the Old City in occupied East Jerusalem.
Palestinians view occupied East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state based on international resolutions that do not recognize Israel’s 1967 occupation or its 1980 annexation.
Be’eri was educated in religious and settlement institutions such as Bnei Akiva and Ateret Cohanim, which encourage Jewish migration to Jerusalem and settlement expansion across the occupied territories.
Between 2006 and 2013, Elad received around 450 million shekels ($125 million), Haaretz reported on March 6, 2016.
The organization often reports sources as “unknown,” in violation of Israeli law, and tax authorities have not enforced transparency requirements.
More than half of this funding came from offshore locations such as the Bahamas, the Virgin Islands and Seychelles, with no clarity on the true donors, Haaretz said.
Globes daily reported on Feb. 2, 2015 that Elad received $6.9 million in 2011 and $5.6 million in 2012.
Between 2000 and 2010, roughly 40 organizations donated $200 million to settlements.
In 2022, Elad received 28 million shekels (about $8.3 million) from the Israeli government to support its settlement and Judaization projects in Wadi al-Rababa in Silwan, south of Al-Aqsa Mosque, according to a Haaretz report on Nov. 22, 2022. Funding bodies included the Ministry of Jerusalem and Heritage, the Jerusalem Municipality and the Jerusalem Development Authority.
Jewish American donors
On March 2, 2016, Israel’s Channel 10 urged far-right groups to help American Jews “reformers” to ensure they continue sending donations. The channel noted that a large share of funds supporting Israeli Jews originates from American Jewish communities.
Donations also support individuals and organizations convicted of terrorist attacks on Palestinians, Haaretz reported on Dec.7, 2015.
Those benefitting include Ami Popper, who killed seven Palestinian workers in 1990, and the Bat Ayin group, whose members tried to bomb a Palestinian girls’ school in East Jerusalem in 2002.
Rising crimes
The number of illegal Israeli settlers in the West Bank has surpassed 730,000, an 8% increase from last year, according to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem in a May 2025 report.
Over the past two years of Israel’s genocidal war that has killed nearly 70,000 people in Gaza, settler and military violence against Palestinians has escalated across the West Bank, including population displacement and settlement expansion.
Palestinian officials warn these actions are laying the groundwork for the annexation of the West Bank, effectively ending the possibility of a two-state solution outlined in UN resolutions.
More than 1,076 Palestinians have been killed, and 10,700 others injured in attacks by the army and illegal settlers in the occupied territory since October 2023. More than 20,500 people have also been arrested.
According to the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, illegal Israeli settlers have carried out 7,154 attacks against Palestinians and their property in the West Bank during the same period.
In a landmark opinion last July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
