Introduction

On 17th December 2025, Francesca Albanese, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, and the Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises sent a Communication (AL ITA 9/2025) to the Italian Government concerning its alleged failure to protect and respect human rights in the context of “the adverse human rights impacts of Italy based and partially Italy controlled oil company ENI S.p.A’s activities” in Palestine.
A letter on the same concerns was sent to ENI S.p.A (AL OTH 149/2025).
The Communications were made public 60 days later, in February 2026.

The Rapporteurs affirmed that ENI S.p.A’s acquisition of an offshore gas exploration license to extract resources in Palestinian unlawfully occupied territorial waters and its provision “of crude oil for Israel’s military occupation and actions” violate peremptory norms of international law and risk complicity in atrocity crimes and genocide.

Three Palestinian human rights organizations (Al-Haq, Al Mezan center for human rights and Palestine center for human rights) had denounced Israel’s awarding of licences to “explore for natural gas” off Gaza’s coast, in areas “that are considered Palestinian maritime areas [even] under international law”  and sent a notice to desist to the involved companies. They affirmed that “Israel's unilateral demarcation of its maritime boundaries to include Palestine’s maritime areas and lucrative natural resources not only violates international law but also perpetuates a longstanding pattern of exploiting Palestinians' natural resources for its own financial and colonial gains. Israel seeks to pillage Palestine's resources, exploiting what is already a mere fraction of Palestinians' rightful natural resources”.

Such initiatives by Palestinian NGOs align with the broader BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement that contextualises the current situation of Palestinian complete energetic dependency on the occupier within the framework of the Oslo Accords. The latter have “institutionalised and normalised Israel’s complete control over energy infrastructures and natural resources” and the systematic destruction by the Israeli military of “any alternative infrastructures, like the Gaza power plant or solar panels in the West Bank”. Finally, it denounces that “since the start of the most recent genocidal escalation” Israel has weaponised “this manufactured dependency, cutting off access to fuel, electricity, water and food, at will". It affirms that “the United States and European countries have capitalised on Israel’s newfound gas export potential by pushing for numerous energy-centric normalisation deals in the region” that “not only legitimise the settler colonial occupation of Palestine, but create an economic and political incentive for states to maintain Israel’s energy sector”. Accordingly, “we cannot separate gas supply chains from the extensive complicity and military cooperation of neighbouring states in this ongoing genocide”.

Italy’s control of ENI S.p.A

The Italian State holds “de facto control” of the company ENI S.p.A.: possessing a combined stake-holding in ENI S.p.A of 31.8 per cent, split among the Ministry of Economy and Finance (approximately 2 per cent) and the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (approximately 29.8 per cent), it is the “single largest and most influential shareholder”. 

The Communication argues that, given that the remaining stocks are “distributed through a diffuse range of investors”, it is implausible that the other shareholders would be able to form a unified opposition to the Italian Government. Therefore, the latter has the power to "influence, appoint Board Members, to exercise a veto power against hostile takeover attempts or major corporate changes that may run counter to the national interest”. Furthermore, the “Golden powers” special legislation grants it authority “to intervene in, or block, corporate resolutions, acts or operations concerning strategically important assets in the energy sector if they pose a threat to national security or public interests, irrespective of ownership”. 

Consequently, the Government of Italy is in a position to exercise “direct means of control over critical strategic decisions”, including ENI’s acquisition of six “offshore gas exploration licences in Palestine’s Exclusive Economic Zone” off Gaza’s coast. The deal was finalised on October 29th 2023, less than a month after the onset of Israel’s genocidal campaign in the Gaza Strip.

Israel’s military use of the crude oil provided

The OHCHR database (“UN database”), established in 2020, lists business enterprises “that have directly and indirectly enabled, facilitated and profited from the construction and growth of the settlements, identifying ten specific types of activities”. While it does not cover all activities, it does capture “critical components of the complex matrix of corporate entities involved in the displacement and replacement of the Palestinians”. The most recent version, updated in 2025, lists 158 companies.

ENI S.p.A is a significant supplier of crude oil to Israel, being a shareholder in the two major crude oil pipelines serving Israel: the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) and the Caspian (CPC) pipelines. 

In addition, a single shipment of 30,000 tons from the Val d’Agri Oil project (“a joint venture between ENI S.p.A (61 per cent) and Shell (39 per cent)”) represented 1 per cent of the total crude oil imported by Israel from October 2023 until July 2024. 

Since there is no publicly available information on the use of oil and gas in the Israeli economy, the UN experts concluded that “there is little evidence to suggest a separation between crude oil used for civil and military purposes”.

These supplies of crude oil are refined into fuel, which is used to support Israel’s settler colonial military occupation, crimes against humanity and genocide in Palestine. The flow from the BTC pipeline is delivered to the Haifa refinery, from which two companies, both currently listed in the UN database, provide fuel in the Occupied Palestinian Territories that is also used to enable the gross violations of international law committed by the Israeli colonial military. One of them, the Delek Group, is directly linked to ENI, which owns,  since October 2024, a 38.7 per cent stake of UK-based Ithaca Energy, part of the Israeli-owned Delek Group. The latter is currently included in the UN list “for its economic involvement in Israeli settlements in Palestine, including supplying fuel to the Israeli Defence Forces (‘IDF’) and ongoing engagement with activities in the West Bank considered illegal under international law”.

The BDS movement in 2025 denounced “energy companies profiting off the sale of stolen Palestinian resources that are [...] fuelling Israel’s ethnic cleansing, apartheid and military campaign of genocide in Palestine” and it claimed that “Israel’s military apparatus - warships, tankers, fighter jets, Apache helicopters, bulldozers, weapons factories - cannot function without a steady supply of extracted and imported fuel”.

International context and applicable international human rights law framework

The UN experts stressed that “normalisation of the illegal is essential to the survival of Israel’s settler-colonial enterprise” because the “ongoing sustainment of any relationships and activities in such a serious context, contributes to legitimating Israeli conduct and furthering impunity which in turn leads to ever more egregious conduct”.

The Communication outlined several instances of Italy’s violations of international law in this context. Firstly, as a State Party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) since 1978, Italy is subject to state obligations in the context of business activities, as detailed in the General Comment No. 24 (2017). 

Secondly, human rights abuses committed by a business enterprise could entail Italy's responsibility for violation of its international law obligations, if the state controls the enterprise (as in the case of ENI) or if its acts can be attributed otherwise to the State. Therefore, the Government “should take additional steps to protect against human rights abuses [...] where appropriate by requiring human rights due diligence” or in conflict-affected areas, as in this case, heightened human rights due diligence (UN guiding principles 4 and 7). 

Since 2016, Italy has adopted national plans, committing to fulfil its duty to protect human rights in compliance with the UN Guiding Principles on Human Rights (UNGPs, 2011). The Second National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights (2021-26) is currently in force. Therefore, the Rapporteurs urged the Italian Government to “ensure that ENI upholds its corporate responsibility to respect human rights and to ensure relevant policies, including the regulations regarding respect for human rights are implemented”.  

Thirdly, Italy, having ratified the Genocide Convention, is legally bound to prevent (“by all reasonably available means”), and punish genocide under Article 1, when it “knows or should reasonably know” of “a serious risk of genocide”. The article specifies that these measures must be taken “especially” by “those states with the capacity to influence the actors likely to commit or already committing the crime”. 

In January 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that the threshold of “serious risk that genocide may occur” had been met, triggering Italy’s duties under Article 1 of the Genocide Convention. This exposed “all those who continue to aid, abet or assist Israel in committing such acts to potential international responsibility for complicity in genocide”. 

In July 2024, the ICJ Advisory Opinion “On the legal consequences arising from Israel’s policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and from the illegality of Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”, ruled that the occupation (since 1967) is inherently unlawful, qualifying it as an aggression, and that the regime is violating the prohibition of apartheid and racial segregation (Article 3 CERD). The consequent General Assembly Resolution (ES-10/25) demanded that Israel end its unlawful presence in the oPt by 17 September 2025. Until then,  States must not “provide aid or assistance or enter into economic or trade dealings, and must take steps to prevent trade or investment relations that would assist in maintaining the illegal situation created by Israel in the OPT”. 

These recent ICJ and ICC proceedings have far surpassed the “heightened risk of adverse human rights impact”,  reshaping “the assessment of corporate responsibility and potential liability”. In particular, any administrative or military action of Israel in the OPT is invalid, due to a lack of lawful authority. Furthermore, corporations must undertake “heightened human rights due diligence” and “address the fundamental illegality at the heart of Israel’s enterprise”.

As regards ENI, the Communication states that its executives “may face criminal liability for aiding and abetting war crimes, including genocide, through the provision of crude oil to fuel Israel’s assault on Gaza”. They are also liable under the Rome Statute, for “the material support” ENI provides to maintain Israel’s unlawful military occupation and “for complicity in unlawful annexation and pillage [...], by illegally acquiring licenses from Israel for gas exploration in Palestinian territory, where Israel is the occupying power, and does not have sovereignty”. Indeed, “while the crime of plunder is typically established upon the commencement of extraction, ENI S.p.A.'s mere acceptance and retention of these concessions may already constitute complicity in violations of peremptory norms of international law. Thus, it also contributes to the denial of the Palestinian right to self-determination (including control over their own natural resources, and the future possibility to exercise it) and to Israel’s unlawful military occupation and the permanent annexation of Palestinian territory. ENI may also be supporting crimes against humanity, such as widespread and systematic extermination, persecution, murder, and forcible transfer of the civilian population.

Therefore, in 2025, “by refraining from suspending this license despite the recent legal developments, including the ICJ's findings, and the UN Independent Commission's report on atrocity crimes ENI is actively entrenching its complicity in Israel's” colonial “unlawful occupation and annexation”.  Therefore they require ENI’s “immediate cessation of the concerned business activity” and its“remedy of the harm done to Palestinians”.

Both Communications are complemented by an Annex that provides further details on the international law framework applicable to Italy and to ENI S.p.A, respectively. 

UN Special Rapporteurs’ Legal and Human Rights Concerns

The Rapporteurs expressed “serious concerns” about the “known risk” that Italy’s investment and its subsequent “lack of actions to protect against human rights abuses allegedly committed by ENI” have facilitated and “continued to facilitate violations and abuses of international human rights and international humanitarian law, including war crimes, crimes against humanity” and genocide. 

They emphasised that “any engagement with the Palestinian people and in the Palestinian occupied territories must comply with their right to self-determination”. This supersedes the “paternalistic justifications based on the fiduciary obligations of the occupying power under the Fourth Geneva Convention” and nullifies the despicable argument that “investment through Israel as the occupier can eventually benefit the Palestinians as well” or that “divestment would have adverse human rights impacts”.

The Communication underlined that corporate actors had been “on notice for decades” of the “widespread and systematic nature of the human rights violations”, upholding the entrenchment of Israel’s settler-colonial occupation and apartheid regime in Palestine, and that “a proper human rights due diligence” would have already identified their responsibilities The post-October 7, 2023, events have turned this illegal economic policy into “genocidal mode”, creating “an untenable situation for corporate entities to simply continue business as usual”.

In conclusion, the Rapporteurs exhorted the private sector, in its own interests, to “urgently reconsider all engagement connected to Israel’s economy of occupation and now genocide”, and to “cease engagement linked to” Palestinian occupied territories “under the UNGPs” considering their “limited capacity [...] to prevent or mitigate the adverse impact”.

Recommendations and Concluding Remarks to the Italian Government

At last, the Communication asserted that all States, including Italy, “must recognize Palestinian self-determination and justice as essential to lasting peace and security, and:

• Suspend all military, trade and diplomatic relations with Israel; 
• Investigate and prosecute all officials, corporate entities and individuals involved in or facilitating genocide, incitement to commit genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes and other grave breaches of international humanitarian law”

As regards Italy, firstly they urged the Government to: 

• take “all necessary interim measures” to stop the alleged violations and “prevent their re-occurrence”
• ensure the accountability of those responsible for the alleged violations, if the “investigations support or suggest the allegations to be correct” 

Secondly, they asked the Italian State to provide both observations and comments on the allegations and additional information concerning the steps taken or that it is considering taking:

• to ensure that business enterprises respect the UNGPs, by requiring them to conduct human rights due diligence addressing prevention, mitigation and remedy of the adverse human rights impacts “that they may cause or contribute to through its own activities, or which may be directly linked to its operations, products or services by its business relationships”. In relation to the business enterprises “owned or controlled by the State”, Italy was asked “to specify” the additional steps taken to protect, among which, when “operating in conflict-torn settings”, “requiring heightened human rights due diligence” as per the UNGPs
• to “help ensure that” those “operating in conflict affected areas are not involved with such abuses”
• to clarify the “expectation that all” enterprises domiciled in Italy’s “territory and/or jurisdiction respect human rights throughout their operations”
• to incentivise “businesses’s establishment and/or participation in operational-level grievance mechanisms” to address “the adverse climate change-related and other human rights impacts caused by and/or contributed to”, in line with the UNGPs
• to “ensure compliance” with the ICJ Advisory Opinion and with the consequent General Assembly Resolution ES-10/25 of September 2024
• to ensure access to remedy in Italy “through State judicial or extra-judicial mechanisms” for “persons affected” by activities abroad of business enterprises domiciled in Italy’s jurisdiction and about the “steps taken [...] to comply with the Advisory Opinion and the provisional measure of the ICJ”

To date, neither the Italian Government nor ENI S.p.A. have replied to the respective communications. Should there be any future replies, they will be published here.

UPDATE:  ENI S.p.A. has withdrawn from the consortium for the exploration and exploitation of gas in Palestinian waters off the coast of Gaza

On October 29th 2023, less than a month after the outbreak of the genocide in Gaza, the Israeli Ministry of Energy announced the award of licences for the exploration of gas fields off the coast of the Strip to two consortia, one of which includes ENI. 

In February 2024, the three Palestinian human rights organisations mentioned above, in a formal notice to desist sent to the companies involved, had requested that they “refrain from undertaking any activity in the areas of ‘Block G’ [...]”. Indeed, 62 per cent of this area falls within the Exclusive Economic Zone of the State of Palestine. Therefore, Israel, as the occupying power, had no legal authority to grant the licences and did so in violation of non-derogable principles of international law.

On March 22nd  2026, the Israeli newspaper Globes announced that in October 2025, ENI S.p.A. would have withdrawn from the consortium established for “the exploration and potential exploitation of gas fields in Palestinian waters” with Dana Petroleum and Ratio Energies. 

On March 24th , 2026, ENI confirmed to Staffetta Quotidiana “its exit from the adjudicating consortium of Block G”. The withdrawal “was decided in the framework of the strategic rationalisation and diversification of its upstream activities, and it acknowledges the decision of the other consortium members to complete the adjudication process”. 

ReCommon reports that “The delay in communication is said to be due to Ratio’s desire to first reach an agreement with Dana Petroleum [...]”. It also states that it received a formal notice from ENI in January 2026 regarding the statements made on the matter, to which it responded publicly in an article. With respect to the condemnation of the partnership with the Israeli “Delek Group” (as mentioned above, currently listed in the UN database), ENI contends that this list certifies “a particular status of the entities included therein”. 

However, ENI and Italy’s collaboration with settlement colonialism in Palestine does not cease with the withdrawal from this consortium. Indeed, ENI remains a major shareholder in the main oil pipelines supplying Israel and in its statements, it has made no mention of halting its supplies for military use. The latter are, in fact, essential to the functioning of the Israeli military apparatus and violate international law.