"Seized, settled, let: how Airbnb and Booking.com help Israelis make money from stolen Palestinian land"

... Exclusive analysis carried out by the Guardian found 760 rooms being advertised in hotels, apartments and other holiday rentals in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, on two of the world’s most popular tourism websites.

Taken together, the listings that appear on either Airbnb or Booking.com could host more than 2,000 people as of August 2024 ...

“Tekoa is a quiet, respectful and diverse, residential community,” reads the listing. There is no mention of the recent confrontations just outside the town, involving guns, clubs, knives and dogs, which have forced neighbouring Palestinians off their land. In a four-mile radius around Tekoa at least 100 Palestinians have been forced out since 2023. The rate of violence and land grabs in the area has escalated dramatically since the start of the war in Gaza.

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In total the Guardian identified almost 350 properties – 321 of them houses, apartments or rooms listed on Airbnb, and 26 hotels on Booking.com – across the West Bank including East Jerusalem, as of 30 August 2024.

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The Airbnb listings found by the Guardian analysis include 18 situated in outposts – settlements considered illegal under international law and also not officially authorised by the Israeli government and against Israeli law.

By operating in settlements, multinational companies including Booking.com and Airbnb are violating international law, human rights activists warn ...

“Any company doing business in Israel’s illegal settlements is enabling a war crime and helping to prop up Israel’s system of apartheid,” Kristyan Benedict, Amnesty International UK’s crisis response manager, said in response to the Guardian’s findings.

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The companies’ hosting of listings on occupied Palestinian territory has also attracted legal challenges. Dutch prosecutors are continuing to investigate a criminal complaint against Booking.com over its listing of rental properties in Israeli settlements, with no decision made as to whether to take further action.

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In a landmark advisory opinion in July 2024 the UN’s international court of justice ordered Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian territories, saying that its presence there violated international law. It also advised member states not to recognise the occupation as legal, or to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation.

The settler claim that the stolen land is now Israeli can be seen in the Airbnb listings. Two in five Airbnb properties on Israeli settlements listed their location as Israel ...

As of 30 August, just five of the 26 hotels listed in Israeli settlements on Booking.com explicitly mentioned in their address or description that they were located on Palestinian territory.

Airbnb announced in November 2018 it would remove about 200 listings in the occupied West Bank, but the company reversed its decision months later after Israeli lawyers filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of hosts and others against removing the listings. The company has said it donates profits from the area to aid organisations.

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Airbnb has refused to disclose how much it has donated to humanitarian organisations since 2019, when it reversed its decision to remove rental listings of homes in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Announcing the reversal, the US company said it would transfer all proceeds from all rentals in the West Bank to humanitarian organisations. The proceeds have gone to the Institute for Economics and Peace, an international thinktank headquartered in Sydney, Australia.

An Airbnb spokesperson said: “Since 2019, Airbnb has donated all profits generated from host activity in the West Bank to an international nonprofit. We will continue this approach as part of our global framework on disputed territories.”

A spokesperson for Booking.com said: “The war in Gaza and the increasing violence in the West Bank, Lebanon and Israel are heartbreaking, and we have been terribly saddened by the extreme pain, suffering and losses that so many people in the region are enduring. Our thoughts are with all those impacted and we sincerely hope for an end to the violence.

“Our mission is to make it easier for everyone to experience the world and as such we believe it’s up to travellers to choose where they want and need to go. It’s not our place to decide where someone can or cannot travel.

“Unfortunately, there are many parts of the world where there are conflicts or disputes, which is why we want to make sure travellers are well-informed when making their plans. If a particular region can be categorised as disputed or impacted by conflict, we add information to our platform to help ensure that travellers can make a well-informed choice, or at least consult their government’s official travel advisories as part of their decision-making process.”