GENEVA, Sept 26, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - The United Nations on Friday released a long-awaited update of its database of companies with activities in Israeli settlements, listing 158 firms from 11 countries.

Big firms such as Airbnb, Booking.com, Motorola Solutions and Trip Advisor remained on the list, while several companies including Alstom and Opodo were removed, the non-exhaustive database showed.

Most of the companies were based in Israel, while others were based in Canada, China, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Britain and the United States.

The report called on companies to "take appropriate action to address the adverse human rights impacts" of their activities.

UN rights chief Volker Turk has condemned Israel's policy of settlements on Palestinian territory in the occupied West Bank as a war crime.

"This report underscores the due diligence responsibility of businesses working in contexts of conflict to ensure their activities do not contribute to human rights abuses," Turk said in a statement as his office published the database.

The list was first produced by the UN human rights office in 2020 amid harsh Israeli criticism, in response to a Human Rights Council resolution four years earlier demanding a database of firms that profited from business in occupied Palestinian territory.

The UN rights office was asked to list companies found to be taking part in any of 10 specific activities, including construction, surveillance, demolitions and destruction of agricultural land in settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

It has stressed that listing companies in the database was "not, and does not purport to be, a judicial or quasi-judicial process".

Despite a requirement for the database to be updated annually, it has been revised just once before, in 2023, when only the 112 firms that had figured on the original list were reviewed.

Fifteen of them were removed for various reasons, leaving 97.

Friday's release marks the first update that includes fresh names.

"A total of 68 new companies were added to the list published in 2023, while seven of those... were removed as they were no longer involved in any of the activities concerned," the rights office said.

The exercise has been contentious from the start.

In 2020 Israel and its main ally Washington fiercely condemned the creation of the database, with then Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz slamming it as "a shameful surrender to pressure from countries and organisations who want to harm Israel".