Senate Must Block Bulldozers to Israel
IMEU Policy Project Policy Memo #30
SUMMARY
Israel is engaging in the widespread destruction of Palestinian, Lebanese, and Syrian homes, in large part with bulldozers supplied by the US. This wanton destruction is designed to forcibly displace millions of people from their homes–a war crime under international law–in order to extend and entrench Israeli military occupation of Palestinian, Lebanese, and Syrian land, and, in the cases of the West Bank and the Syrian Golan Heights, to deepen Israel’s illegal colonization of these lands.
The Senate has an opportunity to end US complicity in these Israeli crimes by cosponsoring and voting for S.J.Res.32, a joint resolution of disapproval to block the delivery of additional Caterpillar D9 bulldozers to Israel.
BACKGROUND
In February 2025, the Trump administration announced a possible Foreign Military Sale (FMS) to Israel of Caterpillar D9 bulldozers and related equipment valued at $295 million (Transmittal No. 24-38), invoking emergency powers to circumvent Congressional oversight. This FMS is likely to be paid for by US taxpayers through Foreign Military Financing (FMF).
In March 2025, Senator Bernie Sanders introduced a Joint Resolution of Disapproval (JRD) (S.J.Res.32) to block the delivery of these Caterpillar D9 bulldozers to Israel.
This JRD, along with another one to block the delivery of bombs to Israel (please see Senate Must Block More Bombs to Israel | IMEU Policy Project Policy Memo #29 for further details), is expected to come up for a vote after the Senate’s spring recess.
S.J.Res.32 builds upon longstanding Executive Branch and Congressional concern with Israel’s misuse of Caterpillar D9 bulldozers. In November 2024, the Biden administration froze the delivery of bulldozers to Israel due to concerns about its demolition of homes in Gaza–one of the very few actions taken by the Biden administration to withhold particular weapons to Israel as it otherwise expedited billions of dollars of weaponry.
However, the Biden administration’s concern was short-lived: it reversed its freeze in January 2025, allowing for the bulldozer delivery in July 2025.
In addition, more than 60 Members of Congress wrote a letter to the State Department in 2020 asking it to investigate Israel’s potential violation of the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) to forcibly displace Palestinians from East Jerusalem by demolishing their houses with these bulldozers.
And during the 108th Congress, 78 Representatives sponsored H.Con.Res.111 calling for an independent US investigation into Israel’s killing of US citizen Rachel Corrie, who was run over and killed by an Israeli soldier operating a Caterpillar D9 bulldozer as he demolished Palestinian homes in Rafah.
💡POLICY ASK: IMEU Policy Project strongly urges all Senators to cosponsor and vote for JRDs to block the delivery of bulldozers and bombs to Israel.
TOPLINES
Israel misuses Caterpillar D9 bulldozers to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity. Since October 2023, Israel has used Caterpillar D9 bulldozers as one of the primary ways in which it has forcibly displaced millions of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, along with more than one million Lebanese civilians, through home demolitions and the wanton destruction of additional civilian structures—war crimes under international law (see below for further details).
Supplying Israel with Caterpillar D9 bulldozers to demolish houses and forcibly displace people is illegal under US law. The Arms Export Control Act (AECA) strictly limits the use of US weapons to internal security and legitimate self-defense, and a few other narrow uses not relevant to Israel’s use of US weapons in Occupied Palestinian Territory, or in Lebanon or Syria. Engaging in wanton destruction of civilian homes for the expressed purpose of forced displacement can never be considered an acceptable usage of US weapons under the AECA.
And the Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) prohibits the delivery of any US weapons to a country which engages in systematic patterns of gross human rights violations and that block US humanitarian aid, which Israel does.Americans want to stop sending weapons to Israel. A majority of all Americans, and an overwhelming percentage of Democratic voters, want to end weapons deliveries to Israel. For example, an August 2025 Quinnipiac University poll found that 60% of Americans oppose sending more weapons to Israel, while only 32% support doing so (75% of Democrats oppose sending more weapons to Israel, while only 18% support doing so).
Americans want our politicians to fund human needs here at home—such as the 7 million shortfall in affordable homes—rather than paying for weapons for other countries to destroy other peoples’ houses.
Since October 2023, Israel has been utilizing bulldozers in massive campaigns of forced displacement and ethnic cleansing in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria. Just recently, Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz vowed to demolish all Lebanese homes in villages near the border with Israel. This is longstanding Israeli practice. In fact, according to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, Israel has bulldozed an estimated 61,805 Palestinian homes in the West Bank since its military occupation began in 1967. And during its establishment in 1948, Israel demolished 531 Palestinian villages to prevent Palestinians from returning.
Gaza
From October 2023 to October 2025, Israel damaged or destroyed an estimated 92% of Palestinian houses in Gaza. In preparation for its ground invasion of Gaza, the Israeli army stationed roughly 100 Caterpillar D9 bulldozers on the outskirts of Gaza for use in the attack. These bulldozers played a “central role” in Israel’s demolition of Palestinian homes and infrastructure in Gaza. “With a skilled operator at the controls, it [a Caterpillar D9 bulldozer] can demolish a residential building within an hour, flattening it to a rubble pile no higher than a meter,” the Israeli media outlet Ynet wrote approvingly.
The Israeli NGO Who Profits Research Center reported that “Between October 2023 and March 2024, Caterpillar D9 bulldozers have been documented in the streets of Gaza causing massive destruction to roads, buildings, private property, and infrastructure, including the destruction of the Gaza courthouse and the Palestine Square in Gaza City.”
In addition, Who Profits reported that “In March 2024, D9 bulldozers participated in the military raid of al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza city, while patients and medical staff were on the premises. [The] Israeli military caused great destruction to the hospital, burned buildings in the compound and put them completely out of use.”
Reporting on this Israeli massacre of Palestinians at al-Shifa Hospital, in which Israel killed an estimated 300 people, Al Jazeera journalist Hossam Shabat, who was subsequently assassinated by Israel in March 2025, reported then that “The bodies were in horrific conditions; many had their hands and legs tied behind their backs and were flattened by a bulldozer.”
Israel also used bulldozers to create a so-called “buffer zone” within areas of Gaza abutting the armistice line with Israel. This “buffer zone” comprises 16% of Gaza, and through its establishment, Israel “has unlawfully destroyed agricultural land and civilian buildings, razing entire neighbourhoods, including homes, schools and mosques,” according to Amnesty International, which has called for a war crimes investigation into Israel’s wanton destruction of Palestinian property in this area.
Even after President Trump’s October 2025 20-point Gaza Plan, Israel has continued to demolish Palestinian homes and property on a massive scale on both sides of the so-called “yellow line” which partitions Gaza into two sectors, one of which could be subject to perpetual Israeli military occupation under the terms of the plan. In January 2026, the New York Times reported that Israel had destroyed an additional 2,500 Palestinian homes and other structures in just two months.
West Bank
Since 2023, Israel has continued and accelerated its large-scale demolition of Palestinian homes and other structures in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. According to the UN, Israel has demolished 9,163 structures in the West Bank since January 2023.
Beginning in January 2025, Israel engaged in the massive destruction of three Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank–Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams–displacing an estimated 40,000 Palestinians refugees who have not been allowed to return. Amnesty International found that Israel used bulldozers, among other weapons, in the largest forced displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank since 1967, which it stated is a war crime.
Ibraheem Khalifa, a resident of Nur Shams, described how his family was forcibly displaced and their apartment building demolished:
“We arrived … to witness the demolitions of our neighbours’ homes and to be present with them [in solidarity]. However, while sitting there, we realized that the [military] bulldozer started to demolish our homes as well. These are apartments we built with our own hands. There, we grew up and made memories. In this house, we got married, held celebrations, went through sorrows—everything. This house witnessed it all. Now, our homes and all of our belongings in them are gone.”
The UN documented that Israel damaged or destroyed 1,460 structures in these three refugee camps, between 36% and 52% of all structures in each refugee camp.
Israel also uses bulldozers to demolish and depopulate entire Palestinian villages both to forcibly displace Palestinians and to expropriate additional land for the expansion of its illegal colonization of the West Bank. For example, in May 2025, the Israeli military used bulldozers and excavators to demolish 90% of homes in the 120-person village of Khalet a-Daba’ in the Masafer Yatta region.
Basel Adra, the Academy Award-winning director of No Other Land, which documents Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Masaffer Yatta, stated that “This is the first time I’ve seen a demolition where families really have no place to go afterwards,” after viewing the demolition. “Caves are now blocked by piles of rubble; homes are gone. There is no shelter at all, and the summer heat is coming.”
Israel also uses bulldozers to uproot Palestinian agriculture in the West Bank, another effort to destroy the Palestinian economy and attempt to force Palestinians off of their land. For example, in August 2025, the Israeli military uprooted 3,100 olive trees in the village of al-Mughayyir near Ramallah in act of collective punishment, a war crime under international law. Israeli military bulldozers draped in Israeli flags uprooted the olive trees.
Whether used to forcibly displace Palestinians from refugee camps, demolish Palestinian homes for the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements, or to uproot Palestinian agriculture, bulldozers play a central role in driving Palestinians from their land in the West Bank as a part of Israel’s ongoing ethnic cleansing.
Lebanon
Since October 2023, Israel has repeatedly engaged in large-scale military campaigns in Lebanon, inflicting extensive damage against Lebanese civilians, their homes, and infrastructure. Between October 2023 and November 2024, Israel damaged or destroyed an estimated 99,000 structures in Lebanon.
Amnesty International documented that Israel severely damaged or destroyed more than 10,000 structures in Lebanon just between October 2024 and January 2025, including through the use of bulldozers. Amnesty International concluded that this wanton destruction violated international humanitarian law and should be investigated as a war crime.
Since March 2, 2026, Israel has been waging an illegal war of aggression against Lebanon simultaneously with the joint US-Israeli illegal war of aggression against Iran. Israel has already forcibly displaced more than 1 million Lebanese civilians from the south of the country and Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz has vowed to demolish all Lebanese homes in villages near the border with Israel “in line with the model we applied in Gaza's Rafah and Beit Hanoun."
Katz has also pledged to implement a potentially permanent military occupation of Lebanon up to the Litani River–approximately 14% of the country–and prevent all 600,000 Lebanese who live there from returning to their homes. Such widespread forced displacement, destruction of homes, and ethnic cleansing is likely to be carried out, at least in part, by bulldozers.
Syria
Since the fall of Asad regime in Syria in December 2024, the Israeli military has been aggressively extending its illegal occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights into a demilitarized zone. The extension of this military occupation has been accompanied by the building of new Israeli military bases and the forced displacement of Syrians and the destruction of their homes.
For example, in June 2025, Israel demolished 12 buildings in the village of al-Hamidiya, forcibly displacing eight families from their homes, according to Human Rights Watch. At least some of these homes were destroyed by bulldozers.
“Our house was closest to the military post, so it was first to be demolished,” one resident told Human Rights Watch. “The land surrounding it, which we had planted with trees, was completely bulldozed along with the house. Nothing was left. We’ve been living under extremely difficult conditions ever since we lost our home and land.”
CONCLUSION
From Gaza to the West Bank, and to Lebanon and Syria, Israel uses bulldozers to engage in the wanton destruction of homes, forced displacement, and ethnic cleansing. The Senate must vote for S.J.Res.32 in order to end US complicity in these Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Photo: ChameleonsEye, via Shutterstock
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