by SEBASTIAN SHEHADI
Munich-based Allianz and California subsidiary have amassed at least $2.67bn in Israeli government bonds since 2024
At the height of Israel‘s military campaign in Gaza, one company became the single largest foreign financier of the Israeli state – holding more in Israeli government bonds than the US, the UK, France and every other country put together.
That company is Allianz, the German insurance and financial services giant, alongside its California-based bond management subsidiary PIMCO, the world’s largest active bond manager.
Data shared with Middle East Eye by Profundo, an Amsterdam-based sustainability research firm, shows that by September 2025 the Allianz group had amassed approximately $2.67bn in Israeli government bonds across its various fund subsidiaries.
This represented 51.8 percent of all non-Israeli holdings captured in the dataset at that moment. Put simply: at its peak, Allianz-PIMCO held more Israeli war bonds than the rest of the world combined.
Governments issue bonds to raise money for public spending or to repay debts.
For Israel, those sales have beencrucial to financing its wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran, with bond issuance hitting historic highs in both 2024 and 2025.
Buying the bonds of a government under active genocide investigation carries legal and reputational risks that go well beyond ordinary sovereign debt investment, but investors have been well compensated for taking that risk.
‘PIMCO’s continued investments in Israeli sovereign debt demonstrate a clear disregard for human rights responsibilities’
– Max Hammer, BankTrack
Israeli government bonds issued during the war have carried an average interest rate of approximately 5.56 percent, compared with 1.4 percent for pre-war issuances.
That “war premium” has made Israeli bonds an attractive trade for yield-hungry institutional investors, even as the country’s credit rating was downgraded by all three major agencies.
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