A research paper called on the US Senate to pass a resolution halting the export of military bulldozers to “Israel”.
The Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project stated in a research paper that D9 bulldozers have contributed extensively to bulldozing, demolition, displacement, and even the crushing of corpses in Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, and Lebanon.
According to the paper: This deliberate destruction aims to forcibly displace millions of people from their homes, which is a war crime under international law, with the goal of expanding and consolidating the Israeli military occupation of Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian territories, and in the case of the West Bank and the Syrian Golan Heights, to deepen the illegal Israeli settlement of these territories.
The paper stated: The Senate has an opportunity to end US complicity in these Israeli crimes by co-sponsoring and voting on Joint Resolution 32, a joint resolution rejecting the blocking of additional Caterpillar D9 bulldozer deliveries to Israel.
In February 2025, the Trump administration announced a potential $295 million arms sale to Israel, including Caterpillar D9 bulldozers and other related equipment, invoking emergency powers to circumvent congressional oversight.
This deal will likely be financed by American taxpayers through the Foreign Military Financing program.
In March 2025, Senator Bernie Sanders introduced a joint resolution of disapproval to block the delivery of these Caterpillar D9 bulldozers to “Israel”.
This joint resolution, along with another resolution to prevent the delivery of bombs to Israel, is expected to be put to a vote after the Senate’s spring recess.
Senate Joint Resolution 32 is based on longstanding concerns of the executive branch and Congress about Israel’s misuse of Caterpillar D9 bulldozers. In November 2024, the Biden administration froze the delivery of bulldozers to Israel because of concerns that they would be used to demolish homes in Gaza, one of the few actions taken by the Biden administration to withhold certain weapons from Israel, while simultaneously rushing to deliver billions of dollars’ worth of arms.
However, the Biden administration’s concern was short-lived: it reversed its decision to freeze the project in January 2025, allowing the bulldozer to be delivered 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 possible violation of the Arms Export Control Act by forcibly displacing Palestinians from Jerusalem by demolishing their homes with these bulldozers.
Since October 2023, Israel has been using bulldozers in large-scale campaigns of forced displacement and ethnic cleansing in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria. More recently, Israeli Defense Minister Yisrael Katz pledged to demolish all Lebanese homes in villages near the border with Israel. In fact, according to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, Israel has demolished an estimated 61,805 Palestinian homes in the West Bank since the start of its military occupation in 1967. During its occupation in 1948, Israel destroyed 531 Palestinian villages to prevent Palestinians from returning.
Between October 2023 and October 2025, Israel damaged or destroyed an estimated 92% of Palestinian homes in Gaza.
In preparation for its ground invasion, the Israeli army deployed approximately 100 Caterpillar D9 bulldozers on the outskirts of Gaza for use in the offensive. These bulldozers played a pivotal role in Israel’s demolition of Palestinian homes and infrastructure in Gaza. The Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot praised them, writing: “With a skilled operator, a Caterpillar D9 bulldozer can demolish a residential building in an hour, turning it into a pile of rubble no more than a meter high.”
The organization “Who Wins” reported that “D9 bulldozers participated in the March 2024 military raid on Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, while patients and medical staff were present in the building. The Israeli army caused extensive damage to the hospital, burning buildings in the complex and rendering them completely unusable.”
In his report on this Israeli massacre of Palestinians at Al-Shifa Hospital, in which Israel killed an estimated 300 people, journalist Hussam Shabat, who was later assassinated by Israel in March 2025, reported that “the bodies were in a terrible state; the hands and feet of many of them were tied behind their backs and crushed by a bulldozer.”
Israel also used bulldozers to create a so-called “buffer zone” within parts of Gaza adjacent to the ceasefire line with Israel. This “buffer zone” encompasses 16% of Gaza, and through its creation, Israel “unlawfully destroyed agricultural land and civilian buildings, and demolished entire neighborhoods, including homes, schools, and mosques,” according to Amnesty International, which called for an investigation into war crimes related to Israel’s deliberate destruction of Palestinian property in this area.D9 bulldozers
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