A complaint for complicity and aggravated cover-up of war crimes is directed at the platforms Airbnb and Booking.com, accused by the League of Human Rights (LDH) of promoting “occupation tourism,” with advertisements for accommodation in Israeli colonies established in the Palestinian territories.
Israeli settlements are illegal under international law. “Despite warnings from United Nations organizations and various human rights associations,” the practices of Booking.com and Airbnb constitute, in the eyes of the LDH, “aid (…) to the concerted Israeli plan of colonization and destruction of the Palestinian population.”
Tourism that “legitimizes the annexation” according to the UN
Airbnb does not specify that the properties offered for rent are located in Palestinian territory: the group simply indicates the name of the settlement, without specifying that it is one, such as Ariel or Yakir. Booking.com, for its part, mentions that the accommodations are located in Israeli settlements and that the latter are in “Palestine”.
The descriptions evoke places of tourist interest and their distances from the accommodation, such as the Mosque of Omar or the Basilica of the Nativity, thus participating “in the maintenance of occupation tourism,” denounces Me Baudouin.
Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories is periodically denounced by the UN, which on September 26 listed 158 companies, most of them Israeli, linked to the development of the settlements.
On June 30, the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, denounced the behavior of the main travel platforms that sell tourism that “legitimizes annexation.” Contacted by AFP on Thursday, Airbnb and Booking.com did not immediately respond.
In an article published in February 2025, the British newspaper The Guardian explained that it had identified 402 advertisements (apartments, houses, hotels), as of August 30, 2024, in illegal settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem: 350 on Airbnb and 52 on Booking.com. With a total of 760 rooms to accommodate more than 2,000 people.
In November 2018, Airbnb announced the removal of rental listings in Israeli settlements in the West Bank. But, sued in Israel and the United States (where American Jewish plaintiffs accused it of religious discrimination), it authorized them again in April 2019. Airbnb then promised that all profits generated would be donated to humanitarian aid around the world.
Complaints in progress
Other NGOs have filed complaints in other countries against these travel platforms. In November 2023, a coalition of four organizations (SOMO, ELSC, AL-Haq and The Rights Forum) filed a complaint in the Netherlands against Booking.com for laundering profits generated by advertisements in illegal colonies. This complaint is still being examined, a spokesperson for the Dutch prosecutor’s office told AFP.
And last June, the organizations GLAN, Al-Haq and Sadaka Island filed complaints in Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States against Airbnb Ireland for complicity in war crimes, money laundering and concealing the benefits of colonization.
At least in one year, with a 15% commission for 50% occupancy of the accommodation offered at 150 euros – taking the figure of 760 proposed by The Guardian -, the annual turnover in the West Bank would amount to more than 3 million euros, the LDH complaint highlights.
Amounts disputed by Airbnb, which tells the AFP that it returns the profits generated by the reservations made in the West Bank, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which from May 2024 to April 2025 amounted to 16,681 dollars (14,270 euros).
Settlements have increased since Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967. Excluding annexed East Jerusalem, more than 500,000 Israelis live there today, among three million Palestinians.
Source: BFM TV
