Dozens of listings on occupied Palestinian land on the accommodation bookings site raise questions about its legal position in profiting from the rentals

Airbnb is listing dozens of properties located in Jewish settlements on occupied Palestinian land as being inside the state of Israel, raising questions about the technology platform’s legal position in profiting from rentals on the land.

The global accommodation bookings website boasts listings in over 190 countries, including Israel and the “Palestinian Territories”, as the West Bank and Gaza are described on the company’s website. But while a search for Airbnb properties in the Palestinian Territories turns up rentals in the Palestinian cities of Ramallah and Nablus, properties in settlements such as Efrat, Ma’ale Rehavam and Tekoa are listed as being in Israel.

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Those Jewish settlements are beyond “the green line” – the border defined in the 1949 Armistice Agreements between the armies of Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria after the 1948 war. Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory are generally viewed as illegal by the international community and have long been seen as a major roadblock to a viable Palestinian state.

Under the Israeli government, led by Binyamin Netanyahu, settlement expansion has surged. The Jewish settler population grew by 23% between 2009 and 2015, to over 400,000 people, in comparison to an overall population growth rate of 9.6% inside Israel.

“People come to us knowing that Efrat is part of the state of Israel, and are not concerned with safety and security issues,” said Lily, the host of a cottage advertised on Airbnb at NIS471 (US$120) per night.

Efrat is a Jewish settlement that was established in 1983 on occupied Palestinian land, 12km south of Jerusalem and 6.5 km east of the green line.

Lily told the Guardian that she has lived in Efrat for 30 years and that her property is “part of Israel”.

“This is our country and we mean to stay,” she said.

Guests would have to travel through two Israeli military checkpoints to reach Lily’s cottage. “There are risks everywhere in Israel and in the world – Paris, California, Tel Aviv, Chicago,” she said.

Airbnb spokesman Nick Papas suggested that Airbnb’s platform incorporates an element of choice in location listings, which are powered through Google Maps. Google Maps automatically suggests an address for hosts, but they can choose to change it, and in some cases Google Maps does not automatically suggest a country, Papas said.

“We follow laws and regulations on where we can do business and investigate concerns raised about specific listings,” Papas said, but he would not respond directly to questions regarding which laws and regulations it considers itself bound by.

In locations where both the Israeli and Palestinian governments claim jurisdiction, it’s unclear which country’s rules Airbnb is following.

Airbnb is increasingly popular in Israel, which is home to a thriving tech startup scene. (PriceWaterhouseCooper valued 2014 sales and IPOs of Israeli tech companies at nearly $15bn.) There are 13,000 Airbnb listings in Israel, and in 2014 the company’s rentals were used by 128,000 guests, according to Haaretz.

Husam Zomlot, ambassador at large for Palestine, condemned the company for hosting listings on occupied land.

“It’s not only controversial, it’s illegal and criminal,” Zomlot said. “This website is promoting stolen property and land. There will come a time when companies like this, who profit from the occupation, will be taken to court.”

Another Airbnb host, Itzhak Levit, advertises a three-bedroom home featuring an idyllic stone courtyard and lush green grapevine in Tekoa, a Jewish settlement on Palestinian land, for NIS810 (US$206) a night. Tekoa is located in Area C, which is under full Israeli military control. Under the Oslo Accords, it should have been returned to the Palestinian Authority by 1999.

Levit told the Guardian that Tekoa complies with international law. “Israel has never agreed that the Geneva Convention resolutions applied to the territories occupied in 1967,” he said. “According to Israeli law, Tekoa, and the vast majority of settlements in the West Bank, are authorized settlements, therefore entirely legal and consistent with national law.”

Staying in an Airbnb rental in a settlement “facilitates the commission of the crime of establishing settlements” and “therefore aids and abets the crime”, said John Dugard, professor of international law and former UN special rapporteur on Palestinian human rights. Similarly, Airbnb “could in theory be prosecuted in [a European Union] country with aiding and abetting the commission of a crime” due to “making money from property built on [an] illegal settlement”, Dugard says.

Airbnb did not respond directly to queries about its standing under international law.

Other rentals listed on the Airbnb website as being located in Israel are in Kfar Eldad, Nokdim, Ma’ale Adumim, Nofei Prat and Keidar. A few of the hosts specify that their properties are in “settlements” or Jewish neighborhoods, but nowhere on the listings does Airbnb mention the Israeli occupation, list security and safety concerns, or note the location of more than 100 permanent Israeli military checkpoints which guests may have to pass through in order to reach the accommodations.

The listings in explicitly Jewish neighborhoods also raise concerns about whether all of Airbnb’s users would be welcome in the rentals. In December, researchers at Harvard released a report finding “widespread discrimination” by Airbnb hosts against users whose names were perceived to be African American.

Levit told the Guardian that he would be willing to host a Palestinian guest. The other hosts approached by the Guardian declined to comment on who would be welcome.

“Discrimination has no place on our platform and we investigate any claims we receive,” said Papas.



