分类： world

On a baked-earthen football pitch cut into the arid desert of southwestern Algeria’s Smara refugee camp, fine orange dust hangs thick in the still late-afternoon air, billowing in choking clouds every time a player sprints after a loose ball. Despite the unrelenting desert heat, a group of young men and teenage boys has gathered for their weekly match—one of the few steady rituals in a life defined by displacement. For the fans leaning on makeshift barriers watching the game, conversation drifts quickly from the local play to the World Cup unfolding thousands of miles across North America, and the deep, history-bound loyalty that draws nearly every Sahrawi refugee in Algeria’s camps to cheer for one team: Algeria.

According to United Nations data, more than 173,000 Sahrawi refugees currently reside in a network of camps near Tindouf, Algeria. Their displacement stretches back 50 years, rooted in a decades-long dispute over their indigenous homeland of Western Sahara, a 266,000-square-kilometer desert expanse in Northwest Africa bordered by the Atlantic Ocean, Morocco, Mauritania and Algeria.

The conflict’s origins trace to the late 19th century, when Spain colonized the region, then called Spanish Sahara. After Morocco gained independence from colonial rule in 1956, it staked a long-standing territorial claim to Western Sahara. By 1973, the Polisario Front formed to advocate for Sahrawi independence, launching an armed movement after Spain agreed to cede the territory to Morocco and Mauritania in the 1975 Madrid Accords—an agreement negotiated without any input from Sahrawi representatives, following Morocco’s mass Green March of 350,000 civilian supporters into the territory. The resulting war forced thousands of Sahrawis to flee across the border into Algeria, where they established the refugee camps that remain home to generations of displaced people today.

A 1991 UN-brokered ceasefire established the MINURSO peacekeeping mission to oversee a planned independence referendum for Western Sahara, but the vote has never been held due to disputes over voter eligibility. The ceasefire collapsed entirely in 2020, after Morocco launched military operations in a UN buffer zone, and sporadic fighting has resumed in the years since. Today, Morocco controls most of Western Sahara, incentivizing Moroccan settlers to move to the region, while the Polisario Front holds a smaller eastern stretch of desert and continues to campaign for full Sahrawi independence—with Algeria as its most prominent regional backer.

That decades-long political and humanitarian partnership has woven deep ties between Sahrawi refugees and their host nation. For generations, Sahrawi refugees have attended Algerian schools and universities, received medical care in Algerian hospitals, and built interwoven family, cultural and political bonds across the border. To many, Algeria is far more than a place of refuge—it is a steadfast ally in their struggle for self-determination.

“My support for Algeria is unconditional,” Brahim Salem, a long-term camp resident, told Middle East Eye. “For us, Algeria is not just a neighbour. It’s a country that stood against oppression and gave us safety when we needed it most.”

That loyalty translates directly to the football pitch. Because the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic remains unrecognized by FIFA, Sahrawi players cannot compete as an independent national team in major international tournaments. For displaced Sahrawis, supporting Algeria becomes a way to channel collective pride and national aspiration that cannot be expressed through their own team.

Algalya, a 60-something refugee who fled Western Sahara as a war refugee decades ago, is among the millions of Sahrawi fans ready to cheer on Algeria. She still vividly remembers the joy of Algeria’s 2019 Africa Cup of Nations victory, when the entire camp erupted in celebration with traditional zaghareet ululations that lasted long into the night. “I remember having nowhere to go, and Algeria welcomed us with open arms,” she said. “I pray Algeria make us happy again.”

Across the camps, football is woven into the fabric of daily life: children chase balls across dusty dirt streets between tents, families huddle around bulky secondhand televisions to watch major tournaments, and local weekly matches like the one in Smara draw crowds of enthusiastic spectators. For local players Hafdala Mohamed and Khalil, their World Cup plan is already set: they will gather to watch every single one of Algeria’s matches together, no matter how late kickoff falls.

For Hafdala, like many other Sahrawi refugees, football is far more than just entertainment. It is one of the only unchanging certainties in a life shaped by decades of exile. Even as the conflict over their homeland remains unresolved, and the dream of self-determination stays unfulfilled, the shared joy of supporting Algeria on the world’s biggest football stage offers a rare moment of collective connection and hope.

In a major development in an antisemitic terror investigation, Australian law enforcement announced Friday that a third suspect has been charged in connection with a devastating late 2024 arson attack on a prominent Melbourne synagogue, an attack Australian authorities allege was orchestrated by Iran.

According to official statements from the Victorian Joint Counter Terrorism Team — a specialized unit combining resources from federal police, state law enforcement, and Australia’s primary domestic intelligence service — the 20-year-old suspect is accused of being one of three masked assailants who forced their way into the Adass Israel Synagogue in the early hours of December 6, 2024. The offenders allegedly doused the interior of the sacred space with flammable liquid before igniting the blaze, which left the building with widespread structural and interior damage. One worshipper who was at the site suffered minor physical injuries during the incident.

The newly charged suspect was already in custody at a Melbourne correctional facility facing unrelated, undisclosed charges, and police have not released his name to the public. He joins two previously arrested co-accused: 21-year-old Giovanni Laulu, taken into custody in July 2024, and 20-year-old Younes Ali Younes, who was arrested one month later. He is scheduled to make his first court appearance on the new arson and terrorism-related charges next week.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese publicly accused Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of directing not just this synagogue attack, but a second arson that targeted a kosher restaurant, Lewis’ Continental Kitchen, in Sydney two months prior to the synagogue incident. Mike Burgess, director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), confirmed that the IRGC leveraged an intricate network of proxies to conceal its direct role in both antisemitic attacks, which have shaken Australia’s Jewish community.

In response to these allegations, the Australian government expelled Iran’s ambassador to Canberra and three additional Iranian diplomatic staff. The Iranian government has repeatedly and vehemently denied any involvement in the attacks.

Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Peter Crozier told reporters Friday that the investigation remains active, with investigators collaborating closely with international partner agencies to unpack the full scope of the plot. A key ongoing line of inquiry, Crozier noted, is determining whether the three accused arsonists knew the identities of the individuals who ordered the attack. “They may not actually be aware of the people who are directing or the principals of these operations. That remains a key line of inquiry for us,” Crozier said.

Victoria Police Acting Assistant Commissioner Paul O’Halloran added that authorities prioritized notifying the local Jewish community of the third arrest before making the news public, to avoid causing unnecessary surprise or alarm. “Our heart goes out to them. Again, this brings back this terrible incident,” O’Halloran said. “People deserve the right to feel safe and be safe in their community and particularly at their place of worship. Today’s charges are a strong testament to this.”

The arrest comes as Australia confronts a documented rise in antisemitic violence across the country. In response to the growing threat, the federal government has launched a public inquiry to examine the surge in hate crimes, which includes a deadly December shooting at a Sydney Hanukkah celebration that left 15 people dead.

Two weeks after a Brussels-based human rights organization filed an official complaint seeking the arrest of an Israeli army reservist accused of war crimes in Gaza, the suspect is thought to have left Indian territory, an anonymous legal source connected to the case confirmed to Middle East Eye Thursday.

The accused, Eitan Gilboa, a member of Israel’s 271st Combat Engineering Battalion, had been vacationing in India when the Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF) submitted the 2 June complaint to Indian authorities. Per the legal representative, who requested anonymity due to personal security risks, Gilboa likely fled the country just days after the complaint was registered.

HRF’s case accuses Gilboa of direct involvement in crimes against humanity carried out during Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza. The organization alleges that Gilboa personally oversaw and celebrated the demolition of civilian residential neighborhoods in the southern Gazan cities of Khan Younis and Rafah, documented his actions in on-the-ground photos and videos, and shared the content publicly on social media platforms. These acts, HRF argues, violate the Fourth Geneva Convention and qualify as prosecutable war crimes under India’s 1960 Geneva Conventions Act. Middle East Eye has independently reviewed multiple pieces of evidence held by HRF to support these claims.

Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has been formally recognized as genocide by the United Nations, leading global human rights organizations, and hundreds of genocide studies scholars. When the complaint was first filed, HRF Director-General Dyab Abou Jahjah stressed that Gilboa was not an ordinary tourist, but a suspected war criminal seeking to evade accountability for his actions. “New Delhi must not allow its soil to become a safe haven for those who celebrate the destruction of civilian lives,” Jahjah said in a statement at the time.

The complaint against Gilboa is part of HRF’s global campaign to investigate and prosecute Israeli nationals accused of war crimes in Gaza. Founded in 2024, the organization has already filed more than 90 criminal complaints against suspected war criminals across 30 different national jurisdictions.

India has emerged as a top post-service travel destination for discharged Israeli military personnel, alongside Thailand and Sri Lanka. An estimated tens of thousands of Israelis travel to India annually, many trekking the popular “Hummus trail” through the Himalayan foothills to decompress after military service. Prior to his departure, Gilboa was spotted in Old Manali and Gondla village in India’s Himachal Pradesh state.

Gilboa was born in Moshav Morag, an illegal Israeli settlement established in the southwestern Gaza Strip, decades before Israel withdrew all settlers from the enclave in 2005. He was redeployed to Gaza as part of the Israeli military’s ground offensive following the 7 October 2023 attacks carried out by Hamas on southern Israel. Following the conclusion of his active reserve service, he traveled directly to India for vacation.

The legal representative for the case told MEE that India’s federal government has so far taken only token action on the complaint, despite India’s binding legal obligations under the 1960 Geneva Conventions Act. “We expected India to move to enforce its obligations under domestic law and international law, but the only response we received was an email from the Bureau of Immigration asking for HRF’s contact information, which was shared immediately. There has been no follow-up action of any kind since that point,” the lawyer said.

On 16 June, the U.S.-based Polis Project reported that HRF documents confirmed the complaint had been forwarded to the Foreigners Division of India’s Ministry of Home Affairs, the department legally responsible for reviewing visas and ordering deportations. No intervention or action was taken within the legally allowed window to process deportation, the organization confirmed.

In its formal complaint, HRF demanded Indian authorities immediately arrest Gilboa, file a First Information Report (FIR) to open a formal criminal investigation, and order his deportation if arrest was not feasible. This complaint marks the first case of its kind brought against an alleged Israeli war crime suspect in India, at a time of rapidly deepening bilateral ties between New Delhi and Tel Aviv.

Earlier this year, India and Israel upgraded their diplomatic relationship to a Special Strategic Partnership for Peace, Innovation & Prosperity, anchored by expanded military and economic cooperation agreements. As part of the deal, the two governments agreed to strengthen bilateral tourism ties, including rolling out joint tourism products and increasing overall travel volumes between the two countries.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and senior Israeli diplomatic officials have repeatedly praised India’s consistent diplomatic support for Israel over the past two and a half years. India has declined to back South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), refused to join any international arms embargo on Israel, and has continued to supply critical military components to the Israeli military. A May 2025 Al Jazeera analysis of Israeli Tax Authority import data covering 2022 to 2025 found India is one of the top five suppliers of military-related goods to Israel following the ICJ’s January 2024 preliminary genocide ruling.

On a Wednesday morning in mid-June 2026, lines of displaced Palestinian families clutching only their identity documents gathered at the entrance of Tulkarm refugee camp in the northern occupied West Bank. For more than 16 months, since Israel launched its large-scale “Iron Wall” military operation across the region in January 2025, these families and thousands more have been barred from returning to the homes they fled, locked out of the communities they built over generations.

Through a limited coordination arrangement mediated by the Palestinian Civil Affairs Committee, just 45 displaced households from Tulkarm camp were granted permission to enter for two hours on June 17. Their mission: collect only the most essential personal belongings left behind when they fled the offensive. This temporary access does not pave the way for a permanent return, leaving thousands of displaced camp residents stuck in limbo, with no clarity on if or when they will be able to resettle in their original homes.

Faisal Salama, leader of the Tulkarm refugee camp Popular Committee, issued sharp condemnation of the restrictive, demeaning conditions imposed on the small group of residents allowed entry. In an interview with Middle East Eye, Salama noted that the entry terms included invasive body searches and the forced confiscation of all communications devices. “These measures are deeply humiliating and inconsistent with basic humanitarian principles and respect for civilians’ rights,” he said. He added that the two-hour time limit only allowed families to grab a handful of urgent items, with no path to moving back to their residences permanently.

“The camp belongs to its residents, yet it has effectively been turned into a military zone while its people remain displaced,” Salama stated. “Thousands of families are still waiting for the opportunity to return and rebuild their normal lives.”

As the permitted residents walked through the camp’s narrow, pockmarked streets, many carried empty canvas bags and wheeled carts, clinging to the small hope of salvaging whatever fragments of their former lives remained inside their homes. Some left with armfuls of personal documents, clothing and small mementos, while others found their properties so heavily damaged that almost nothing was salvageable. Widespread destruction is visible across every corner of the camp: damaged homes, crumbled roads, and crippled infrastructure stand as evidence of the months-long military operation. For many residents, the brief two-hour visit was as much about confronting the wreckage of their former communities as it was about collecting belongings.

Abdelhalim Turkman, one of the displaced residents allowed entry, described the experience as overwhelmingly emotional. “This is the first time I’ve entered the camp in more than a year and a half,” he said. “It’s very emotional to see my home and neighbourhood again. We came to collect some of our belongings, but what we’ve been through cannot be compensated.” Turkman added that the short trip only reinforced the scale of what residents have lost, and the persistent uncertainty hanging over their futures. “I hope the day comes when we can return and live here again,” he said.

Aisha Zeitoun, another displaced resident who entered the camp, called her return after 16 months of displacement a deeply painful experience. “Walking back into my home after more than a year and a half was heartbreaking,” she said. “Every room holds memories of the life we once had, and seeing it again brought back so much emotion.” When Zeitoun and her family stepped inside their property, they were met with widespread, catastrophic damage. “We only had a limited time to gather what we could, but the destruction was overwhelming,” she said. “We couldn’t even take many of our belongings because of the damage.”

Like other residents, Zeitoun emphasized that temporary access to retrieve a small number of possessions is not enough. What the displaced population truly demands is the right to permanently return and rebuild. “Today we’re leaving with only a few belongings,” she added. “But what we really want is the chance to come back home for good and rebuild our lives.”

The mass displacement of Tulkarm camp residents began on January 27, 2025, when the Israeli military launched its offensive across the northern West Bank. Local officials confirm that more than 10,000 Tulkarm residents were forced to abandon their homes during the operation. Over the 19-day campaign, approximately 40,000 refugees from Jenin, Tulkarm and Nur Shams camps were forcibly expelled by Israeli special forces, who deployed armored vehicles, drones and bulldozers to carry out the operation.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has labeled the Israeli offensive “the longest and most extensive displacement crisis since 1967.” The agency’s assessments estimate that 43 percent of Jenin camp, 35 percent of Nur Shams camp, and 14 percent of Tulkarm camp have been completely destroyed or suffered severe irreversible damage. Local officials confirm that across Tulkarm camp alone, more than 1,100 housing units have been fully leveled, while an additional 4,400 units have sustained partial damage.

In the 16 months since the offensive ended, most displaced families have been living in overcrowded, inadequate conditions: in makeshift temporary shelters, overcrowded displacement centers, overpriced rented accommodation, or crammed with relatives in nearby towns and villages. This brief two-hour access marked the first time most of these residents have been allowed to step foot inside the camp since they fled.

When the two-hour window expired, the permitted families once again exited Tulkarm camp, carrying whatever small belongings they had been able to recover. Behind them, they left damaged homes, broken communities, and neighborhoods that have remained almost entirely empty since their displacement. Along with their handful of salvaged possessions, they carried back out the same uncertainty that has defined their lives for 16 months: no official guarantees have been given about when, or if, they will be allowed to return for good. While the visit offered a fleeting, bittersweet reunion with the places they once called home, displaced residents remain waiting for the promise they have held since January 2025: the unconditional right to return and rebuild their lives.

Amid the intensification of Israel’s multi-front military campaign across Gaza, Lebanon, and the occupied West Bank, a transatlantic financial giant has quietly become the single biggest foreign backer of Israeli sovereign debt, holding more Israeli government bonds than the United States, United Kingdom, France, and every other non-Israeli entity combined. New data compiled by Amsterdam-based sustainability research group Profundo, shared exclusively with Middle East Eye, lays bare the unprecedented scale of this investment: by September 2025, Germany’s Allianz, which owns California-headquartered bond behemoth PIMCO, the world’s largest active fixed-income manager, had accumulated an estimated $2.67 billion in Israeli government bonds across its network of fund subsidiaries.

This staggering sum accounted for 51.8 percent of all tracked non-Israeli holdings in Profundo’s dataset at that time, confirming that at the peak of Israel’s military expansion, the Allianz-PIMCO combine held more Israeli sovereign bonds issued to fund wartime operations than the rest of the entire world’s non-Israeli investors put together. For Israel, these bond sales have become a critical lifeline. To finance its ongoing military campaigns, Israeli authorities ramped up sovereign bond issuance to record-breaking levels in both 2024 and 2025, with a sizeable “war premium” built into yields to attract risk-tolerant institutional investors. Issued during the active conflict, these bonds carry an average interest rate of 5.56 percent, far outpacing the 1.4 percent average yield of pre-war Israeli issuances – a premium that has proven irresistible to yield-hungry asset managers even after all three major global credit rating agencies downgraded Israel’s sovereign credit score.

But the investment carries far more than standard financial risk. Since the International Court of Justice opened an investigation into allegations of genocide against Israeli forces in Gaza, holding Israeli government bonds exposes investors to significant legal and reputational repercussions that go well beyond ordinary sovereign debt investments. Critics argue that PIMCO’s sustained accumulation of these bonds demonstrates a deliberate disregard for fundamental human rights obligations under international law. “In light of Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, PIMCO’s continued investments in Israeli sovereign debt demonstrate a clear disregard for human rights responsibilities and international legal obligations,” explained Max Hammer, a campaigner with BankTrack, an organization that tracks the human rights impacts of commercial financial institutions. “They also put PIMCO at odds with many of its peers, which have understandably decided to pull back from Israel’s bond issuances. Human rights organisations, international legal experts and UN officials – including Francesca Albanese – have been clear that providing financing to Israel inevitably means contributing to gross human rights abuses and war crimes.”

Profundo’s dataset tracks holdings from international institutional investors across four quarterly snapshots between late 2024 and early 2026. While the research is not fully comprehensive, it captures a clear, staggering trend: total non-Israeli holdings of Israeli government bonds surged more than fourfold from $1.16 billion in November 2024 to at least $4.91 billion by March 2026, a growth trajectory that aligns directly with the expansion of Israel’s military operations across Gaza, Lebanon, and the occupied West Bank. The data reveals that this explosive growth is overwhelmingly driven by just two markets: the U.S. and Germany. Together, investors based in these two countries held 90.7 percent of all tracked non-Israeli holdings as of early 2026, totaling $4.45 billion of the $4.91 billion aggregate, with all other nations combined accounting for less than 10 percent of total foreign holdings.

The rise of Allianz-PIMCO’s holdings is particularly dramatic. In November 2024, shortly after the outbreak of the current conflict, the Allianz group – which spans its core German insurance operations, PIMCO’s U.S. fund platform, PIMCO Europe, and Allianz Global Investors – held just $32 million in Israeli bonds. Less than 12 months later, that figure had ballooned to $2.67 billion, a concentration of investment unmatched by any other corporate group in Profundo’s dataset. “Allianz, through PIMCO, is by far the largest non-Israeli investor in Israeli sovereign bonds and has been so since the October 7 attacks. It has not divested from these bonds, even after allegations of genocide were submitted to the ICJ,” said Ward Warmerdam, senior researcher at Profundo. “It’s no coincidence that it’s a US-German company that is investing so much into Israel. Allianz/Pimco is the largest fixed income investor in the world. But, that only goes some way to explain this scale of investment. I believe it is disproportionate, and deliberate. And the question of how deliberate it is for them to double down on Israeli sovereign bond issuances after October 7th is something I believe only insiders can speak to.”

Middle East Eye reached out to both Allianz and PIMCO with detailed questions about their Israeli bond holdings, but neither company had issued a response by the time of this publication. PIMCO, officially the Pacific Investment Management Company, is one of the most influential players in global bond markets. Founded in Newport Beach, California in 1971, the firm manages $2.27 trillion in total assets as of early 2026, including $1.86 trillion held on behalf of external clients ranging from public pension funds to sovereign wealth funds and global insurance groups. PIMCO has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Allianz since 2000, and together with Allianz Global Investors, it helps the parent group manage nearly €2 trillion in third-party assets, making the combined Allianz group one of the largest asset managers on the planet.

The group’s Israeli bond holdings are spread across dozens of separately registered fund vehicles, with the majority held through PIMCO’s various subsidiaries, plus additional holdings through Allianz Global Investors. Profundo’s aggregation of separate regulatory filings reveals the $2.67 billion peak holding figure, but researchers emphasize this is almost certainly an undercount of the group’s true exposure. Beyond investing its own and client capital through its in-house funds, PIMCO also acts as a sub-manager for hundreds of external mandates from institutional investors around the world, purchasing bonds on behalf of third-party clients within client-approved investment guidelines. This means PIMCO’s role in the Israeli bond market extends far beyond its own balance sheet holdings, with the true volume of Israeli bonds passing through PIMCO’s operations unknown to the public.

One high-profile example of this dynamic came to light in a previous Middle East Eye investigation, which revealed PIMCO purchased $29.2 million in Israeli government bonds between 2024 and 2025 on behalf of Border to Coast, the United Kingdom’s largest public sector pension pool. The purchases only became public after pro-Palestine activists filed public inquiries, prompting Border to Coast to open a review and ultimately divest its holdings under activist pressure. The only rationale PIMCO provided for the purchases, relayed to Border to Coast ahead of the divestment, was that the bonds were purchased based on Israel’s then-strong credit rating and economic fundamentals. However, this explanation does not rule out hidden political ties or vested interests driving the investment, and no PIMCO executive, including CEO Emmanuel Roman, has ever addressed the purchases publicly. Notably, PIMCO’s global advisory board includes Joshua Bolten, former White House Chief of Staff and a prominent figure in Washington’s pro-Israel policy community, alongside former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

While Allianz-PIMCO dominates foreign holdings of Israeli sovereign bonds, the broader U.S. investment industry stands as the core pillar of international demand for the debt. U.S.-based investors held $2.02 billion in Israeli government bonds as of March 2026, up from just $879 million in November 2024, with growth remaining steady and showing no signs of slowing. Pennsylvania-headquartered Vanguard, the world’s largest index fund manager, crossed the $1 billion threshold in Israeli bond holdings for the first time in the March 2026 snapshot, with its holdings continuing an upward trajectory.

Germany’s outsized share in the data is largely a product of PIMCO’s ownership structure: of the $2.43 billion in total German-domiciled holdings tracked in the dataset, roughly 94 percent is managed by PIMCO out of its U.S. headquarters. In reality, the overwhelming majority of this investment is U.S.-domiciled capital, flowing into Israeli war bonds at an unprecedented rate through U.S.-based asset management firms. After the U.S. and Germany, the next largest national holders as of March 2026 are the United Kingdom ($149 million), Canada ($101 million), Italy ($53 million), Switzerland ($46 million), and France ($22 million) – with all these nations combined accounting for just 9 percent of total non-Israeli holdings.

The concentration of U.S. capital in Israeli bonds reflects both the outsized dominance of U.S. asset managers in global fixed-income markets and the deep, sustained support for Israel at the highest levels of U.S. political and financial leadership. The trend also highlights a stark divide between the U.S. and much of Western Europe when it comes to Israeli bond investment. While the U.S. and Allianz-PIMCO have dramatically expanded their exposure, a growing wave of European institutional investors have moved to divest their Israeli holdings in response to human rights concerns. In September 2025, Danish academics’ pension fund AkademikerPension formally excluded Israeli sovereign debt from its portfolio. Three months prior, the Irish Strategic Investment Fund sold off all its Israeli government bonds, while Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global divested from 11 Israeli companies and excluded five major Israeli banks.

“Across the West’s asset management industry, we’re seeing divergence rather than convergence [especially between the US and much of Western Europe],” said Courtney Wicks of the Center for Monitored and Ethical Investment. “Some managers are reducing their exposure to [Palestine-related] human rights concerns in response to political or reputational pressure, rather than strengthening conflict-sensitive stewardship frameworks.”

This divergence is even visible within the Allianz group itself. In late 2025, Allianz’s core insurance division dropped its coverage contract for Elbit Systems UK, the British subsidiary of Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems, following months of sustained activist pressure. At the very same time, the group’s asset management division held billions of dollars in Israeli government bonds that fund the military campaigns Elbit Systems supplies. Pro-Palestine activists who occupied Allianz offices in London and Guildford in 2024 and 2025, spraying red paint to protest the Elbit contract, now face a nearly £300,000 civil lawsuit from Allianz, in addition to existing criminal proceedings. A London court recently ruled the civil case can proceed, and the activists, who have no access to legal representation for the civil claim, argue the lawsuit is an attempt to suppress legitimate political protest. For context, Allianz reported an operating profit of $20.1 billion in 2025.