Norway’s largest pension fund said on Wednesday that it had divested from US industrial group Caterpillar because of the risk its equipment was being used by the Israeli Army in Gaza.
“For a long time, Caterpillar has supplied bulldozers and other equipment that has been used to demolish Palestinian homes and infrastructure to clear the way for Israeli settlements,” Kiran Aziz, head of responsible investments at KLP, said in a statement.
“It has also been alleged that the company’s equipment is being used by the Israeli Army in connection with its military campaign in Gaza following the Hamas attack on October 7 last year,” she added.
Because of this, there is a “risk that the US company may be contributing to human rights abuses and violation of international law in the West Bank and Gaza,” KLP said.
The fund said that since Caterpillar “cannot provide us with assurances that it is doing anything in this regard, we have decided to exclude the company from investment.”
In April 2021, KLP, who has around $90 billion under management, excluded companies linked to Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, including telecom equipment giant Motorola.
With AFP
