This category of involvement encompasses all commercial activities linked to the exploitation of occupied Palestinian and Syrian land, resources and labor.

From the onset of its 1967 military occupation of the Palestinian territory and the Syrian Golan, Israel has used its military rule to the advantage of Israeli and international corporations and economic interests, to the detriment of the occupied Palestinian economy. All Palestinian imports and exports have been controlled, restricting the competition with Israeli producers, and making the Palestinian consumer market into a captive market for Israeli goods. Regulatory and effective restrictions were imposed on the development of businesses that could compete with Israeli industries, and all basic and utility services were routed through Israeli firms.

Severe restrictions on movement of Palestinian labor and goods inside the occupied Palestinian territory and to neighboring areas have further increased the dependency of the Palestinian economy on Israeli companies as employers and retailers. The growing apparatus of checkpoints and walls has all but destroyed Palestinian local production and the Palestinian labor bargaining power.

Israeli companies have a relative high concentration of capital and unobstructed freedom of movement. When operating in the occupied Palestinian territory they also enjoy special governmental support, access to cheap resources, tax incentives, and a very lax enforcement of labor laws and environmental protection laws. These advantages result in the exploitation of Palestinian labor, Palestinian natural resources and the Palestinian consumer market.

Arguably the most significant document for understanding the economy of the Israeli occupation, the Paris Protocol, signed as the economic annex of the Oslo Accords, codified and cemented Israeli domination over the subordinate Palestinian economy. The agreement regulated the financial relations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, placing them under the same taxation envelope. As a result, both markets are subjected to the Israeli currency and the same import and export system.

Though signed in 1994 as an interim agreement for a period of five years, the Paris Protocol continues to provide the basic framework for the economic relations between the occupying and the occupied economy. Its significance, which cannot be overstated, is that practically all Israeli companies involved with the Palestinian economy gain direct or indirect advantages from the actions of Israeli authorities and from the special conditions created by the occupation, and thus exploit the Palestinian economy. Therefore, the companies profiled by Who Profits serve only as examples of the different types of structural advantages enjoyed by Israeli and multinational companies in the framework of the Israeli occupation.

Who Profits has identified three sub-categories of corporate activity in Economic Exploitation: Palestinian Captive Market, Exploitation of Occupied Production and Resources and Labor Exploitation.