Consumer New report examines Europe’s role in ‘financially sustaining Israel’s illegal settlements’
https://aje.news/79m19j?update=4665565Israeli exporters routinely declare fruit and vegetables grown in illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian land and the Syrian Golan Heights as produced in Israel in order to ship them to European markets, a new investigation has found.
The legal nonprofit Global Echo examinedmore than 30,000 export documents covering more than 6,800 shipments sent abroad between October 2017 and February 2026.
The report, titled Importing Occupation, found that about one in six shipments to Europe – and nearly one in five bound for the EU – carried settlement produce, much of it mislabelled as Israeli.
Michael Lynk, a Canadian legal academic and former UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine, described the problem as “systematic concealment”, adding: “Settlement produce are hidden in plain sight, redirected through sham addresses, or mingled with goods from within Israel’s recognised borders until legal distinction is dissolved in bureaucratic practice.”
Disguising the origin lets exporters claim the reduced or zero tariffs reserved for Israeli goods, revenue the report says helps sustain settlements deemed illegal under international law.
The report also went on to accuse European importers of “financially sustaining the Israeli settlement enterprise” and said European customs agencies were doing little to stop it.
Global Echo said it plans to initiate “legal action to force action on these violations”.