"Construction equipment multinationals may be aiding Israeli war crimes, experts say", 17 June 2026

Human rights experts have alleged that six multinational construction equipment conglomerates may be aiding and abetting war crimes by supplying excavators and bulldozers to Israel, after photos and videos showed the Israeli military using their equipment to demolish villages in south Lebanon....

The Guardian geolocated and verified images showing the Israeli military using excavators made by six companies – Caterpillar, Volvo, Hyundai, Doosan, Hitachi Construction Machinery and Komatsu....

Human Rights Watch has said that Israel’s wide-scale destruction of villages could amount to wanton destruction – a war crime...

Much of that destruction is being carried out by excavators and bulldozers produced and sold to Israel by foreign companies...

The Israeli military, commenting on the incident in Debel, said the actions seen in the video were “not in line with the IDF’s values”, and that the incident was under investigation...

Human rights experts said that supplying the construction equipment that enables the Israeli military to destroy homes and villages in south Lebanon could make these companies complicit in any war crimes and potentially lead to their executives facing legal consequences. Foreign companies should stop supplying heavy construction equipment to Israel until they are assured that it will not be used in war crimes, the experts said....

For decades, the Israeli military has used foreign-produced excavators to demolish the homes of Palestinians, often in circumstances that could amount to forced displacement and war crimes...

Volvo, Komatsu, Hitachi Construction Machinery and HD Construction Equipment – which operates the Hyundai brand – said they had internal policies to ensure that human rights were respected, including in their contracts with dealers who sell their equipment. Volvo, Hitachi and Komatsu said they had limited ability to control what customers did with their products once they were sold to dealers, while HD Construction Equipment said the equipment bearing the Hyundai logo pictured in Lebanon was not sold by them and was “entirely unrelated”...

Caterpillar did not reply to a request for a comment and Doosan is no longer being produced....

Alreem Kamal, an international lawyer who works on corporate accountability in the Middle East, said: “The documented use of similar equipment in contexts such as Gaza means that companies cannot plausibly claim that they were unaware of the risks.

There is a legal precedent of executives and corporations being held accountable for selling products used in human rights violations, starting with the Nuremberg trials...