Britain's largest pension fund sells Israeli assets | News

Sold the largest private pension fund in Britain USS sells assets it owns in Israel for £80m, the Financial Times reported.

According to the newspaper, the fund members have been pressing to withdraw investments from Israel, given its human rights record. Palestinian territories Occupied since the beginning of the war on Gaza strip last year.

In its most recent annual report, published in July, the USS Fund said it had a “legal duty to invest in the best financial interests of our members and the beneficiaries of the fund.”

The fund has more than 500,000 members, most of whom work in the higher education sector, including lecturers at universities such as Oxford and Cambridge.

The fund's total investments are worth £79 billion.

The fund thus joined a group of global pension funds that liquidated their assets in Israel, due to the ongoing war on the Gaza Strip, according to the Financial Times.

Similar steps

The USS move is the latest in a series of similar actions by major global pension funds that have pulled their investments from Israel in response to pressure from their members.

Last June, KLP, the largest private pension manager in the world, announced that it would NorwayIt has divested its stake of about $70 million in the American industrial group Caterpillar, because its equipment is used to violate the human rights of Palestinians in the occupied territories.

Pension company also withdrew in Denmarkone of the largest pension funds there, has all of its investments in Israeli banks.

In the UK, public sector pension plans with cash tied to groups that supply arms to Israel are under intense pressure to divest their holdings.

This wave of divestment comes amid growing Student protests And the popular rejection of the war waged by the Israeli occupation army on the Gaza Strip since October of last year.