[News] World's largest shipping firm facilitates US trade with illegal Israeli settlements

[Anti-Imperialist News]

 World's largest shipping firm facilitates US trade with illegal Israeli
settlements

The International Court of Justice has issued an advisory call for states
to end trade that supports illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank

News Desk <https://thecradle.co/authors/news-desk-9>

FEB 9, 2026 -
https://thecradle.co/articles/worlds-largest-shipping-firm-facilitates-us-trade-with-illegal-israeli-settlements
(Photo credit: MSC)

The world’s largest shipping firm, Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC),
has been transporting goods from the illegal Israeli settlements in the
occupied West Bank to the US, including via European ports.

According
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/9/shipping-giant-msc-facilitates-trade-from-israeli-settlements-through-eu>
to a joint investigation by *Al-Jazeera* and the Palestinian Youth Movement
(PYM) published on 9 February, commercial documents obtained through US
import databases show that between 1 January and 22 November 2025, MSC
facilitated at least 957 shipments of goods from Israeli settlements to the
US.

Of these shipments, more than half transited through European ports,
including 390 in Spain, 115 in Portugal, 22 in the Netherlands, and two in
Belgium.

MSC is privately owned by Italian billionaire Gianluigi Aponte and his
Italian-Israeli wife, Rafaela Aponte-Diamant.

“Israeli settlements are widely considered illegal under international law,
because they are built on occupied territory, in violation of the Fourth
Geneva Convention,” noted Nicola Perugini, senior lecturer in international
relations at the University of Edinburgh.

“Commercialising products from these settlements effectively supports the
illegal settlements,” she affirmed.

A wide range of products are produced in the settlements, from food items
and textiles to skin care and natural stones, *Al-Jazeera* noted.

Israel conquered the West Bank and Gaza during the Six-Day War in 1967 and
has sought to oust the native Palestinian Muslims and Christians and
replace them with Jewish Israelis in an effort to create “Greater Israel.”

Professor Perugini called on states to ban trade with illegal settlements
entirely. “You cannot normalize the profits of an illegal occupation,” he
said.

The US and EU allow imports of products from Israeli settlements, despite
policies formally acknowledging the settlements are illegal.

MSC also facilitates shipments from the US and Europe to the Israeli
settlements.

In 2025, MSC facilitated at least 14 shipments from the Italian port of
Ravenna, listing the names and zip codes of Israeli settlements as
recipients.

MSC also holds cooperation and vessel-sharing agreements with Israel’s
publicly held cargo shipping company, ZIM.

Such shipments may be illegal under international law following a 2024
opinion by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) advising that third
states are obliged to “prevent trade or investment relations that assist in
the maintenance of the illegal situation created by Israel in the Occupied
Palestinian Territory.”

The ICJ opinion does not directly address the responsibility of private
corporations like MSC.

PYM, a grassroots, international pro-Palestinian movement, found last year
that Danish shipping firm Maersk, the world’s second largest, also ships
products to and from Israeli settlements.

According to UN estimates, businesses located in illegal settlements in the
West Bank and East Jerusalem contribute about $30 billion to the Israeli
economy each year.

Settlement businesses are often unusually profitable as they are
established on stolen Palestinian land that the company has not paid for.

Israel has recently accelerated efforts to expand the E1 settlement
project, designed sever the West Bank into two parts, isolate it from East
Jerusalem, and ensure a two-state solution becomes impossible.

The plan calls for constructing 3,500 apartments next to the existing
settlement of Maale Adumim.

On Sunday, the Israeli government approved sweeping changes to land
registration and civil control in the occupied West Bank, which will
dramatically expand settlement construction, *Middle East Eye* (MEE)
reported
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-approves-west-bank-policy-expand-settlements-deepen-control>
on Monday.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Defense Minister Israel Katz
said the policy changes are intended to pave the way for expanded
settlements and land seizures.

Under the new measures, the military will be allowed to demolish
Palestinian buildings and homes for which Israel refused to issue a
building permit in areas A and B of the West Bank

The changes would also open West Bank land registries to the Israeli
public, enabling settlers to identify Palestinian landowners and pressure
them to sell their land.

Making ownership records public could also make it easier for settlers to
forge claims over Palestinian land, and thereby seize Palestinian land
through Israeli courts, MEE added.

The measures also loosen restrictions on the sale of Palestinian land to
Israelis, overturning a Jordanian-era law prohibiting transfers to
non-Palestinians.
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