Danish teachers’ pension fund to divest from Israeli state assets over Gaza, settlements

Citing the war in Gaza and West Bank settlement expansion, a Danish teachers’ pension fund worth nearly $25 billion said Wednesday that it would stop investing in Israeli state assets, including government-controlled companies.

The decision by AkademikerPension, which manages the pensions of Danish teachers and university lecturers, follows the recent decision by Norway’s $2-trillion sovereign wealth fund — the largest of its type in the world — to divest from some Israeli-linked holdings, including five major Israeli banks.

The independent, member-owned AkademikerPension, which controls about 157 billion Danish crowns ($24.77 billion), said the war in Gaza was not in accordance with international humanitarian principles.

“This comes as an assessment of the State of Israel’s ability to uphold human rights,” CEO Jens Munch Holst told Reuters.

The decision comes about a week into the IDF’s ground offensive to take over Gaza City, and nearly two years after Hamas stormed southern Israel on October 7, 2023, to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, sparking war and leading to mass displacement, destruction and death in the Strip.

Hostage families and, reportedly, the military, have warned that the operation would harm Israel’s remaining 48 captives and urged the government to reach a ceasefire-hostage deal with Hamas.

International aid groups have warned that the operation would deepen the humanitarian crisis in Gaza City, where the UN declared a famine last month in a report Israel has rejected.

According to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, more than 65,000 Palestinians in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far. The toll, which cannot be independently verified, does not distinguish between civilians and fighters.

Israel says it has killed over 22,000 combatants in battle as of August and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 onslaught.