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UN human rights experts have called on countries and oil companies to stop all supplies to Israeli occupation forces, highlighting the destructive role of oil in fueling the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Michael Fakhri, cited on X on March 16 research from Oil Change International (OCI), which revealed that three companies were supplying oil to the Israeli occupation forces through the United States, Brazil, Russia, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan.

Fakhri called for the implementation of economic sanctions and emphasized that countries providing oil to the Israeli occupation forces are likely “complicit in Gaza genocide.”

In an interview for the Press TV website last week, Fakhri also stressed that “countries should impose a weapon embargo and economic sanctions against Israel. Countries currently supplying weapons to Israel are complicit in genocide and starvation."

“Israel is also destroying the food system in Gaza” and “the only way” to stop a full-scale famine in Gaza “is to ensure humanitarian aid to enter without any restriction and for a permanent ceasefire,” he added.

Another UN special rapporteur speaks up

The UN special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, Balakrishnan Rajagopal, in another post on X, backed Fakhri’s call and stated that “corporations should cease and desist or face potential liability tomorrow.”

Fully endorse this call. Corporations should cease and desist now or face potential liability tomorrow. https://t.co/LjYVchhV1Z

— UN Special Rapporteur on the right to housing (@adequatehousing) March 16, 2024

The global oil industry exposed

According to research, some of the world's most successful fossil fuel firms, as well as US taxpayers, are fueling Israeli planes and tanks that are killing Palestinians in Gaza.

"Israel" relies on imported crude oil and refined products to power its massive fleet of fighter planes, tanks, and other military vehicles.

The study commissioned by the non-profit Oil Change International and observed by The Guardian on March 14 indicates that the occupation relied heavily on fossil fuels from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Brazil, Gabon, and the United States since the war began.

According to Data Desk, a UK-based IT consultancy organization that studies the fossil fuel market, the major oil firms enabling fuel deliveries include BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, and TotalEnergies.

Since October, the occupation received 3 US tankers carrying JP8 fuel. Although one shipment departed before October 7, one left after more than 16,000 Palestinians had been killed on December 6, while the third left in February, two weeks following the International Court of Justice's interim finding that "Israel" may be committing genocide.

David Boyd, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights and the environment, stated that countries and companies supplying the occupation are "contributing to horrible human rights violations and may be complicit in genocide."

Allie Rosenbluth, the US program manager at Oil Change International, called for the US to be held particularly accountable since it fuels the ongoing genocide "on top of over a hundred other weapons sales."