The UK-based construction equipment company, JCB, is to be investigated after a UK Government body found today that key aspects of a human rights complaint by the UK legal charity Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights (LPHR) are “material and substantiated”, in relation to the use of its heavy machinery in Israel’s illegal demolitions and settlement construction in the occupied Palestinian territory that result in serious human rights violations.

The Initial Assessment decision reveals that JCB accepts that LPHR’s submitted evidence does show its machinery being used to demolish homes and other structures. Palestinian Bedouin communities in Area C of the occupied West Bank are particularly vulnerable to demolitions and displacement in violation of their human rights, such as the right to adequate housing.