Israeli tanks, jets, and bulldozers bombarding Gaza and razing homes in the occupied West Bank are being fueled by a growing number of countries signed up to the genocide and Geneva conventions, new research suggests, which legal experts warn could make them complicit in serious crimes against the Palestinian people.
Four tankers of American jet fuel primarily used for military aircraft have been shipped to Israel since the start of its aerial bombardment of Gaza in October.
Palestinians inspect the ruins of Aklouk Tower destroyed in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City on Oct. 8, 2023. Photo courtesy of Wiki Palestine.
Three shipments departed from Texas after the landmark international court of justice (ICJ) ruling on Jan. 26 ordered Israel to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza. The ruling reminded states that under the genocide convention they have a “common interest to ensure the prevention, suppression and punishment of genocide”.
Overall, almost 80 percent of the jet fuel, diesel and other refined petroleum products supplied to Israel by the US over the past nine months was shipped after the January ruling, according to the new research commissioned by the non-profit Oil Change International and shared exclusively with the Guardian.
Researchers analyzed shipping logs, satellite images and other open-source industry data to track 65 oil and fuel shipments to Israel between Oct. 21 last year and July 12.
It suggests a handful of countries – Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Gabon, Nigeria, Brazil and most recently the Republic of the Congo and Italy – have supplied 4.1 million tons of crude oil to Israel, with almost half shipped since the ICJ ruling. An estimated two-thirds of crude came from investor-owned and private oil companies, according to the research, which is refined by Israel for domestic, industrial and military use.
Israel relies heavily on crude oil and refined petroleum imports to run its large fleet of fighter jets, tanks and other military vehicles and operations, as well as the bulldozers implicated in clearing Palestinian homes and olive groves to make way for unlawful Israeli settlements.
In response to the new findings, UN and other international law experts called for an energy embargo to prevent further human rights violations against the Palestinian people – and an investigation into any oil and fuels shipped to Israel that have been used to aid acts of alleged genocide and other serious international crimes.
“After the 26 January ICJ ruling, states cannot claim they did not know what they were risking to partake in,” said Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, adding that under international law, states have obligations to prevent genocide and respect and ensure respect for the Geneva conventions.
The official death toll in Gaza has almost doubled to at least 40,000 since the ICJ ruling, with thousands more Palestinians maimed, injured and missing under the rubble, presumed dead since Israel launched its retaliation for the deadly attack by Hamas on 7 October. About 96 percent or 2.15 million Palestinians are facing crisis levels of hunger, with food sources destroyed by military attacks and humanitarian aid severely curtailed.
“In the case of the US jet-fuel shipments, there are serious grounds to believe that there is a breach of the genocide convention for failure to prevent and disavowal of the ICJ January ruling and provisional measures,” said Albanese. “Other countries supplying oil and other fuels absolutely also warrant further investigation.”
In early August, a tanker delivered an estimated 300,000 barrels of US jet fuel to Israel after being unable to dock in Spain or Gibraltar amid mounting protests and warnings from international legal experts. Days later, more than 50 groups wrote to the Greek government calling for a war-crimes investigation after satellite images showed the vessel in Greek waters.
Last week, the US released $3.5 billion to Israel to spend on US-made weapons and military equipment, despite reports from UN human rights experts and other independent investigations that Israeli forces are violating international law in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. A day later, the US approved a further $20 billion in weapons sales, including 50 fighter jets, tank ammunition and tactical vehicles.
The sale and transfer of jet fuel – and arms – “increase the ability of Israel, the occupying power, to commit serious violations”, according to the UN human rights council resolution in March.
The US is the biggest supplier of fuel and weapons to Israel. Its policy was unchanged by the ICJ ruling, according to the White House.
“The case for the US’s complicity in genocide is very strong,” said Shahd Hammouri, a lecturer in international law at the University of Kent and the author of Shipments of Death. “It’s providing material support, without which the genocide and other illegalities are not possible. The question of complicity for the other countries will rely on assessment of how substantial their material support has been.”
Brazil, where President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been one of the sharpest critics of Israel, accounts for 9 percent of the total crude oil supplied to Israel in the past nine months. One of the crude shipments departed in February after the interim ICJ ruling. An additional tanker of fuel oil, used mostly for heating and powering generators, set sail in April.
Lula withdrew Brazil’s ambassador to Israel, but has not issued a ban on oil exports.
“The clock started after the ICJ ruling, but there was already a general obligation for states under the Geneva convention to respect, enforce and ensure enforcement of international humanitarian law, which is clearly not happening,” added Albanese.
A spokesperson for the Brazilian president’s office said oil and fuel trades were carried out directly by the private sector according to market rules: “Although the government’s stance on Israel’s current military action in Gaza is well known, Brazil’s traditional position on sanctions is to not apply or support them unilaterally.”
Azerbaijan, the largest supplier of crude to Israel since October, will host the 29th UN climate summit in November, followed by Brazil in 2025.
“The inconsistency of the states is worrisome, as the future Cop hosts send oil to an unlawful occupation and alleged genocide. It shows how far we are from compliance with climate commitments and international law, and the urgent need to change course,” said Astrid Puentes Riaño, UN special rapporteur on the human right to a healthy environment.
A spokesperson for the Israeli ministry of foreign affairs said the charges of genocide brought by South Africa are “false, outrageous and morally repugnant … [Hamas] sought to perpetrate genocide on Oct. 7 in the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, [and] is directly responsible for the suffering of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Israel remains steadfast in its commitment to international law, targeting its military actions solely against Hamas and its allied terrorist groups. The Israeli military makes every effort to minimize civilian casualties and ensure that humanitarian aid reaches those in need in the Gaza Strip.”
The Biden administration did not respond to requests for comment, nor did Vice-President Kamala Harris’s presidential election campaign team.
Israel is a small country with a relatively large army and air force. It has no operational cross-border fossil fuel pipelines, and relies heavily on maritime imports.
The new research by Data Desk, a UK-based tech consultancy firm investigating the fossil fuel industry, draws on ship positions, commodity trade flows, information from port authorities, shipbrokers and satellite imagery, as well as financial and media reports to track the fuel supply chain between Oct. 21 and July 12.
Israel has two refineries to convert crude oil into fuels for domestic, military and industrial use. According to the EIA, each barrel of crude is converted into gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, as well refined products such as asphalt and petrochemicals – depending on the grade of the oil, the refinery and demand.
The new data suggests:
Some fuel from refineries goes directly to the armed forces, while much of the rest appears to go to ordinary gas stations where military personnel can refuel their vehicles under a government contract. It is not possible to link specific crude shipments to specific military use from the available data.
Israeli tanks have diesel engines, as do commercial bulldozers. Israel has received diesel shipments from Greece and the US since Jan. 26. It also converts crude into diesel fuel at its refineries, suggesting that oil imports are probably contributing to land military operations in the Gaza Strip, where 2 million Palestinians are trapped, as well as the expansion of settlements that even its allies accept are unlawful.
The existing obligation for states not to assist or collaborate with illegal occupations was confirmed by the ICJ in a separate landmark advisory opinion in July, that found Israel’s annexation, settlements, racial segregation and apartheid system in the occupied Gaza Strip and West Bank to be unlawful.
The court said that states must cooperate to ensure an end to Israel’s illegal presence in the occupied Palestinian territory and must not render aid or assistance in maintaining the unlawful situation created by Israel. The Israeli foreign ministry rejected the ruling as “fundamentally wrong” and one-sided.
“Palestinians appreciate the diplomatic and rhetorical support of states such as Brazil, Russia, Nigeria, Kazakhstan, among others. However, this cannot exonerate their direct complicity in literally fueling Israel’s genocide and underlying system of settler-colonial apartheid,” said Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the boycott, divestment, sanctions (BDS) movement, which is calling for an energy embargo on Israel.
The governments of Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Nigeria, Gabon and the Republic of the Congo did not respond to requests for comment, and neither did Greece or Albania.
Corporations can and have been held liable for providing material support in war crimes during previous conflicts. In the Nuremberg trials, corporate officials were held directly responsible for their material assistance to crimes committed by the Nazi regime. In a recent landmark civil ruling, Chiquita was ordered to pay $38m to the families of Colombian men murdered by a paramilitary group financed by the US fruit company between 1997 and 2004.
The UN has guiding principles for businesses and other non-state actors on their obligations to respect human rights and abide by international humanitarian law and international criminal law, over and above compliance with national laws.
“Corporations supplying jet fuel and oil to Israel may be providing material support to the military, aware of its foreseeable harmful effects, and therefore risk complicity in war crimes, genocide and other crimes under international law,” said Dr Irene Pietropaoli, senior fellow in business and human rights at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law.
Just six major international fossil-fuel companies – BP, Chevron, Eni, ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies – could be linked to 35 percent of the crude oil supplied to Israel since October, the OCI analysis suggests. This is based on direct stakes in oilfields supplying Israeli and/or the companies’ shares in production nationally.
“Given the well-documented ongoing war crimes and warnings of a genocide, these oil corporations have the responsibility to identify and prevent any contribution to violations by the Israeli army,” said Lydia de Leeuw, researcher and co-author of Fuelling the Flames in Gaza at the Dutch non-profit Somo.
Shell and Total declined to comment. BP and Exxon did not respond.
A spokesperson for Chevron, which owns stakes in oil production in Kazakhstan, Nigeria and the Congo, said the company was focused on reliably providing energy the world needs: “Chevron operates in compliance with all applicable laws.”
Eni, which owns a 61 percent stake in the Italian oilfield which supplied a 30KT shipment delivered to Israel last month, said: “Regardless of the accuracy of the data reported, which we do not intend to comment on, Eni firmly rejects the very serious accusations … [associating] Eni’s activities with the ongoing war events in Gaza, especially through predominantly indirect connections such as participation in upstream or midstream projects.”
Eni added: “In general, oil supplies primarily support the functioning of social, economic, and industrial systems in countries.”
In February, dozens of UN experts called on states to consider “sanctions on trade, finance, travel, technology and cooperation” as part of measures to prevent and stop violations of international humanitarian law by Israel, after it failed to comply with the ICJ ruling.
Last week, Colombia suspended coal exports to Israel “to prevent and stop acts of genocide against the Palestinian people”, according to the decree signed by President Gustavo Petro. Petro wrote on X: “With Colombian coal they make bombs to kill the children of Palestine.”
Historically, energy embargoes have been used as collective counter-measures to pressure states committing grave violations of international law, including against the apartheid regime in South Africa.
David Tong, industry campaign manager at Oil Change International, said: “Every day that oil companies provide fuel to Israel these companies expose themselves to potential legal action for their complicity in genocidal acts against civilians in Gaza.”
Albanese said: “I have recommended that weapons and oil to Israel be suspended until the current assault in Gaza stops. Like all sanctions, this may come at a cost, but that is the deterrent function that sanctions should also serve.”
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