PNGO and PHROC support Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global’s (GPFG) continued divestment from companies involved in Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise  

The Palestinian Network of NGOs (PNGO) and Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council (PHROC) comprising over 140 Palestinian civil society organisations across the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) wish to reiterate and clarify Palestinian civil society’s stance with regard to the international legal obligations of Norway to divest from corporations contributing to the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory, including both international and Israeli corporations.

We were informed by our partner organizations in Norway that representatives from the Norwegian Government have expressed that Norwegian civil society is alone in demanding that Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG) divest from companies complicit in illegal Israeli settlement activities. Furthermore, it has also been expressed that Palestinian representatives in meetings with Norwegian authorities particularly emphasise the need for increased humanitarian aid from Norway, as well as cooperation and support with the International Criminal Court (ICC) investigations.

While Palestinian civil society appreciates Norway’s support in these areas, it is incorrect to state that we do not request the Norwegian Government to comply with its international legal obligations to divest in total from corporations complicit in the illegal occupation of Palestinian territory. Our advocacy has constantly recalled that Third States, including Norway, must refrain from assisting Israel in the commission of serious breaches of peremptory norms of international law and from maintaining the illegal situation arising from such violations, as confirmed in the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) Advisory Opinion of July 2024 on The Legal Consequences Arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. This includes the obligation to divest from companies that provide the support needed for Israel to maintain its illegal occupation and de facto and de jure annexation of occupied Palestinian territory (OPT), and to carry out its settler colonial project and genocidal campaign in the OPT, as part of the continuing Nakba.^[1]

The impact Norway can have in this regard is substantial, given the contribution of Norway’s GPFG, the “world's largest sovereign wealth fund”, in these violations, as exposed in the last report released by the Don’t Buy Into Occupation (DBIO) coalition in 2024. According to this report, GPFG is by far the largest European investor, which manages or holds bonds and shares in the 58 businesses identified by the coalition, with 1,186 US dollars (USD) of bondholding and 18,759 USD of shareholding. These companies are considered “actively involved with illegal Israeli settlements” in the OPT.

A. Divesting to Comply with the Obligation to Prevent the Genocide of the Palestinian People

GPFG investments are directly contributing to genocide. Corporations include RTX Corp, General Electric, and General Dynamics, who have reportedly produced weapons used by the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF). Since 7 October 2023, the IOF have killed 51,266 Palestinians and injured 116,991 others in the Gaza Strip, excluding a further estimated 10,000 Palestinians still buried under the rubble. In her report “Anatomy of a Genocide”, the UN Special Rapporteur Ms. Francesca Albanese denounced the transformation of the entire Gaza Strip into a single military unit worth destroying regardless of the human cost:

Immediately after the 13 October evacuation orders and the transformation of southern Gaza into an ostensible “safe zone”, Israel illegally categorized the inhabitants of northern Gaza who had remained (including the sick and wounded) as “human shields” 250 and “accomplices” of terrorism. This policy points to the intention by Israel to “transform” hundreds of thousands of civilians into “legitimate” military targets or collateral casualties through impossible-to-follow evacuation orders. The mass evacuation order included a staggering 22 hospitals in the area, putting at risk more than 2,000 patients and displaced people sheltering in the hospitals, and deprived those remaining of life-sustaining services.

On 26 January 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) examined genocidal statements coming from Israeli officials, and how Israel took steps to act on these statements through mass indiscriminate killings and destruction, added to the denial of basic supplies necessary for the survival of the population in Gaza. It concluded that Israel is plausibly committing the crime of genocide against the Palestinian people through killing and maiming of Palestinians and imposing conditions of life calculated to bring about their destruction. On 28 March 2024, the ICJ considered that the catastrophic conditions in the Gaza Strip, notably “the fact that famine is setting in with at least 31 people, including 27 children, having died of malnutrition and dehydration” are “exceptionally grave”, which warranted the modification of these provisional measures it indicated on 26 January 2024. One full year later, famine has taken hold in the Gaza Strip, as Israel has prevented a single drop of food, water, or medicine from entering the Gaza Strip since 2 March 2025.

Since January 2025, Israel has conducted a large-scale military operation in the northern West Bank that involves the largest mass-forced displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank since 1967, massive destruction of homes and critical infrastructures, and the imposition of a total siege on hospitals and refugee camps, preventing Palestinians from accessing basic daily needs. These are the same methods that Israel used in Gaza over the past 18 months.

As a State party to the Genocide Convention, Norway is under the obligation to prevent genocidal acts as defined by the ICJ in the case Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro), (2007):

[…] the obligation in question is one of conduct and not one of result, in the sense that a State cannot be under an obligation to succeed, whatever the circumstances, in preventing the commission of genocide: the obligation of States parties is rather to employ all means reasonably available to them, so as to prevent genocide so far as possible. A State does not incur responsibility simply because the desired result is not achieved; responsibility is however incurred if the State manifestly failed to take all measures to prevent genocide which were within its power, and which might have contributed to preventing the genocide. In this area the notion of “due diligence”, which calls for an assessment in concreto, is of critical importance. Various parameters operate when assessing whether a State has duly discharged the obligation concerned. The first, which varies greatly from one State to another, is clearly the capacity to influence effectively the action of persons likely to commit, or already committing, genocide. This capacity itself depends, among other things, on the geographical distance of the State concerned from the scene of the events, and on the strength of the political links, as well as links of all other kinds, between the authorities of that State and the main actors in the events.

The significant amount of funds invested by GPFG before 7 October 2023 in companies supporting Israel and collaborating with its settler colonial project in the OPT has certainly contributed to enabling it to commit the genocide that followed, and still does since then, especially through the investments in RTX Corp, General Electric, and General Dynamics. By supplying military equipment to Israel, these companies are complicit in Israel’s ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people.

We emphasise that a broad view is necessary, as the ICJ has acknowledged that Israel’s economy is deeply intertwined with the Israeli military, and thus, the illegal occupation and settlement infrastructure.^[2]  Any investments in Israel’s economy broadly, and companies involved in Israel’s criminal conduct in the OPT in particular, enable Israel to entrench its settler colonial and apartheid regime, and the profits resulting from these investments can be thus allocated in furtherance of illegal occupation and genocide. It is thus incumbent on Norway, under the Genocide Convention, to divest from the companies listed in the DBIO report.

B. The obligation to Divest under International Customary and Humanitarian Law

The ICJ concluded in its 2004 Advisory Opinion on the Wall that the establishment of Israeli settlements in the OPT and the annexation of East Jerusalem blatantly violate international law, notably the Fourth Geneva Convention (GCIV), which prohibits the transfer by an occupying Power of its civilian population in the territory it occupies and the destruction of properties owned by the indigenous population therein. These settlement activities amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and fall within the scope of its current investigation into the Situation in the State of Palestine. Israel’s settler enterprise and the systematic and institutional practice of dispossession, displacement and the denial of refugee return it entails have also denied the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, a peremptory norm of international law.

Following this Advisory Opinion, a series of divestments were implemented in 2014, including the decision by a Dutch pension fund manager to withdraw its investments from five Israeli banks involved in financial activities linked to the settlements, as well as the decision by the Norwegian Ministry of Finance to exclude Israeli firms from its Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG). Norway based its decision on the violation of rights caused by settlement activities and its obligation to ensure respect for international humanitarian law as per Common Article 1 of the Geneva Conventions. Among the rules provided for in GCIV is Article 55, according to which an occupying Power is only an administrator and usufructuary of natural resources in the occupied territory, which thus can only be used to the necessary extent for the purpose of the occupation. 

This provision was relied upon by the ICJ as part of its landmark Advisory Opinion (AO) on The Legal Consequences Arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem (19 July 2024), in which it declared Israel’s presence in the OPT illegal, partly because it violates the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, including the right to exercise permanent sovereignty over natural resources and the right to economic development. 

On 30 August 2024, the GPFG’s Council of Ethics informed Norway’s Ministry of Finance of its broadened definition of unethical corporate behaviour, referring to the ICJ’s finding that “the occupation itself, Israel's settlement policy, and the way Israel uses the natural resources in the areas are in conflict with international law".

In particular, these ethical guidelines highlighted that “business activities linked to the West Bank […] to the largest extent contributed to the illegal transfer of Israeli citizens to the OPT, and therefore qualified for exclusion from the GPFG.” As mentioned above, such transfers violate a basic prohibition imposed on an Occupying Power to transfer its own civilian population into the territory it occupies, under Article 49 of GCIV. The Council added that “[a]ll goods and services offered in Israel are, in principle, also available to the inhabitants of the settlements. A large number of companies may therefore be said to have links to the occupation of the West Bank in one way or another.” According to the Council, these guidelines prompted GPFG’s decision on 3 December 2024 to sell all its shares in Bezeq, Israel’s largest telecom group, which provides telecom services to Israeli settlements in the West Bank, “facilitating the maintenance and expansion of these settlements, which are illegal under international law”. As a result of this expansion and complicity of companies, there are today about 350 illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which host a population of over 700,000 settlers.

In 2024, the Council assessed around 65 companies working in various areas, including energy supply and infrastructure construction. The road construction is of particular concern, as Israel has approved on 29 March 2025 the construction of the “Fabric of Life Road”, which “will close the heart of the West Bank to Palestinians”. Upon completion, this project will create separate apartheid roads for Palestinians and Israelis, effectively closing off and annexing a vast area of the West Bank, the Ma’ale Adumim area, amounting to approximately 3% of the West Bank, to Israel.  Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office commented that the road construction will “boost Israeli construction in the highly contentious E1 area in the West Bank […].”  The project is funded by Palestinian revenues taken by Israel through its illegal occupation, more specifically, the “money collected from Palestinians by the Civil administration”. Hence, not only is Israel’s occupation illegal ab initio but the exploitation of the Palestinian lands and resources is subsequently reinvested to commit further violations, with the participation of foreign companies, including those connected to GPFG.

States have a primary duty to protect against human rights abuses by third parties, including businesses, as per the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Home States must thus “ensure that businesses within their jurisdiction conduct enhanced corporate due diligence assessments to prevent human rights violations expressed and take all the necessary steps to meet their obligations. As emphasised by the Council, “companies operating in areas of conflict must exercise a higher level of due diligence. The due diligence requirement is heightened when the norm violations are more serious.”

In the abovementioned 2024 AO, the ICJ has determined such seriousness, which arises from the violation by Israel of peremptory norms of international law, including not only the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, but also the prohibitions of the use of force, racial segregation and apartheid. Consequently, all States must act upon their legal obligations to ensure that this unlawful situation is brought to an end, as well as their obligation not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence in the OPT (para. 279). These obligations are enshrined in Article 40(1) and (2) of the Draft Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts (International Law Commission, 2001), which reflect customary international law. The ICJ further considers that these include the obligation to “take steps to prevent trade or investment relations that assist in the maintenance of the illegal situation created by Israel in the [OPT] (para. 278). These obligations on Third States, including Norway to divest are echoed in UN General Assembly resolution on Illegal Israeli actions in Occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (13 September 2024), which in paragraph 5 calls on all States:

“(a) To take steps to ensure that their nationals, and companies and entities under their jurisdiction, as well as their authorities, do not act in any way that would entail recognition or provide aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory;

b) To take steps towards ceasing the importation of any products originating in the Israeli settlements, as well as the provision or transfer of arms, munitions and related equipment to Israel, the occupying Power, in all cases where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that they may be used in the Occupied Palestinian Territory;

(c) To implement sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, against natural and legal persons engaged in the maintenance of Israel’s unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian.”

In light of the above, we urge Norway to take immediate, concrete and appropriate measures to end further involvement of its pension fund in gross war crimes, crimes against humanity and continuing acts of genocide across the OPT.