Registry · HEI

Does Heidelberg Materials support Israel?

Heidelberg Materials AG

Business presence documentedupdated 2026-09-25

Heidelberg Materials does business in Israel — we found records of its operations there, but no record of donations, aid, or a public statement of support. Every claim below links to its source.

Filed under: Companies that support Israel

Background

Everything on this page is business: operations in Israel, an increased stake in an Israeli company, and a quarry in occupied territory. No donation, aid in kind or public statement of support for Israel was found from Heidelberg Materials, its foundation or its employees, and the company's own political-donations policy bars corporate gifts to candidates, with US employee giving channelled through a political action committee that gave only to US candidates and construction-industry committees. The live question about this company is tense, not generosity. Heidelberg Materials has been saying it wants out of the Nahal Raba quarry for a decade: Human Rights Watch recorded that senior staff told it in January 2016 that Hanson was actively seeking a sale and considering a joint venture with the Palestinian Authority, and that then-chief executive Bernd Scheifele said the same at that year's annual meeting; in May 2025 chief executive Dominik von Achten said the goal was still to sell the quarry by the end of the year. No sale has been reported, the subsidiary obtained an expansion permit for the site in July 2025 — under Israeli law a quarry expansion generally requires the owner to stay the same — and the group's holdings list as at 31 December 2025 still shows six Israeli companies, one of which it bought further into in 2024. So the company's 'ceased in 2023, complex remains closed' and the UN's September 2025 listing are not simply a contradiction to resolve in one direction: the quarrying stopped, by the company's account and by its own filing to an Israeli court, which said the reserves were exhausted; the corporate presence did not. Germany's Supply Chain Due Diligence Act applies to a group of this size (about €21 billion of revenue in 2024 and more than 4,600 employees in Germany), and the federal office that enforces it, BAFA, told taz only that it had taken note of the OHCHR publications. Separately, five concrete mixer trucks burned at a Heidelberg Materials plant in Rosbach vor der Höhe on 2 September 2026, causing about €800,000 of damage; police are investigating suspected arson and consider credible an anonymous claim of responsibility posted on Indymedia which cited Hanson Israel's business and its former West Bank activity, alongside German support for Israel and German rearmament. Being the target of such a claim says nothing about whether the company supports Israel; it is noted here because it is why the company is currently in the news.

Human Rights Watch — Letter to HeidelbergCement regarding Nahal Raba quarry expansion taz — Tochterfirma will illegalen Steinbruch ausweiten Heidelberg Materials — 2025 Annual and Sustainability Report (PDF) hessenschau — Betonmischer in Flammen, Polizei hält Bekennerschreiben für glaubwürdig

Timeline of documented records

20072010201320162019202220252007-08 — Operations in IsraelOperations in Israel2007-082023 — Operations in IsraelOperations in Israel20232023-07 — Operations in IsraelOperations in Israel2023-072024-09 — Acquisition: Stone Quarries Hanson Ltd. (Ramat Gan, Israel)Acquisition2024-092025-02 — Operations in IsraelOperations in Israel2025-022025-07 — Operations in IsraelOperations in Israel2025-072025-09 — Operations in IsraelOperations in Israel2025-09

Documented records

TypeDateAmountRecipientSources
Operations in Israel2007-08——
Heidelberg Materials has had a business in Israel since it bought the UK-based Hanson group in August 2007, and that business is still in the group. The group's 2025 annual report says that in Israel it mainly produces aggregates and ready-mixed concrete and operates a cement import terminal as a separate line of business; the company's Israel country page says only that the subsidiary produces aggregates, asphalt and ready-mixed concrete; and Hanson Israel's Hebrew site describes 25 concrete plants, three quarries, two asphalt plants, a fleet of mixer and haulage trucks and an exclusive cement import terminal at Ashdod, with about 530 staff. The holdings list in the group's 2025 annual report, dated 31 December 2025, still carries six Israeli companies: Hanson (Israel) Ltd., Hanson Quarry Products (Israel) Ltd., Hanson Yam Limited Partnership and Pioneer Beton Muva Umachzavot Ltd. (99.98% each), Tadir Readymix Concrete (1965) Ltd. (100%) and Stone Quarries Hanson Ltd. (69.99%), all registered in Ramat Gan. This is a commercial presence in the Israeli market, not aid or a donation.
Operations in Israel2023——
Through Hanson Israel, the group quarried at Nahal Raba in the occupied West Bank from 1989 until 2023. Who Profits, an Israeli advocacy research centre, describes a site of about 515 dunams (515,000 m²) on private and public land of the Palestinian villages of al-Zawiya and Rafat, with an asphalt plant and a ready-mix plant on it and a production licence running to November 2026. A February 2020 report by SOMO and Al-Haq, 'Violations Set in Stone', said the subsidiary sold quarry products to Israeli settlements and paid royalties to the Israeli Civil Administration, the body that administers the occupied territory; Human Rights Watch, which had made the quarry one of five case studies in its 2016 report 'Occupation, Inc.', wrote in May 2020 that Hanson paid millions of dollars a year in taxes and royalties to the Samaria Regional Council and the Civil Administration. Heidelberg Materials says Hanson Israel ceased all activity at the quarry and its asphalt and ready-mix plants in 2023 and that the whole Nahal Raba complex remains closed. taz reported in October 2025 that Hanson Israel told the Jerusalem District Court on 15 August 2025 that extraction had stopped because the reserves were exhausted.
Operations in Israel2025-09-26——
The UN human rights office put both Heidelberg Materials AG (home State: Germany) and Hanson Israel Ltd. in Annex I of its update to the database of businesses involved in Israeli settlements, report A/HRC/60/19 of 26 September 2025, under listed activity (g), 'the use of natural resources, in particular water and land, for business purposes'. OHCHR says Annex I covers enterprises it found reasonable grounds to believe were involved during the current assessment period — it assessed 215 companies and listed 158 — and neither company appears in Annex II, which names enterprises no longer involved. On the dpa-AFX wire's account it was the first German cement company named. Heidelberg Materials rejected the listing the same day, saying Hanson Israel operates no facilities in the occupied Palestinian territory including East Jerusalem, that the Nahal Raba complex remains closed, and that the listing 'does not reflect the current situation'. A listing is a UN finding about the company's use of land, not a record of support for Israel.
Operations in Israel2025-07-04——
While the group said the quarry was shut, its subsidiary was still pursuing permission to enlarge it. Plan 52/14/2, 'Hanson Israel Nahal Raba — southern expansion', would add about 97 dunams (roughly 9.7 hectares) of quarrying area on land of al-Zawiya and Rafat; the mining and quarrying subcommittee of the Israeli Civil Administration's planning bureau approved it on 28 May 2025 and it was published for effect on 4 July 2025, after the company had pressed for it for more than a decade. When the Israeli human rights group Yesh Din went to the Jerusalem District Court to stop it, Hanson Israel replied in August 2025 that further delay would cause the company damages running into millions and shortages of construction supply, and that it would affect the jobs of many Palestinian workers. taz reported that the parent knew of the approval before its press release rejecting the UN listing and told both Who Profits and taz that it changes nothing: no resumption of activity is planned. At the annual general meeting in May 2025, chief executive Dominik von Achten repeated that the company's goal was still to sell the quarry by the end of the year.
Operations in Israel2023-07-20——
Who Profits says it has documented Hanson Israel vehicles serving Israeli settlements and installations in the occupied West Bank: concrete delivered to the expansion of the Barkan industrial zone and trucks at the Qalandiya checkpoint in 2015, construction material delivered at the settlement of Ofarim in 2016, gravel from the Nahal Raba quarry going into Israel in 2017, a truck inside the Gilboa prison complex in January 2022, and a company truck in Ramallah on 20 July 2023; it also attributes to Hanson the supply of material for Highway 4197 in occupied East Jerusalem, opened in 2013. These are Who Profits' own field observations and its characterisation of them, and taz counted four documented settlement deliveries since 2015 on the same basis. The company's answers are on the record: it told Who Profits that Hanson Israel delivered no material to Ramallah, and told taz that Hanson Israel 'is not involved in settlement construction, land development or political decision-making'. Human Rights Watch said in 2020 that it had seen evidence of continued deliveries to settlements, which it noted would contradict the company's October 2017 statement that Hanson Israel does not sell building materials to settlements.
Operations in Israel2025-02-08——
taz reported in October 2025 that Hanson Israel also supplies Israeli construction in the occupied Syrian Golan, citing the subsidiary's own Instagram account: a post of 8 February 2025 described a visit to the site of the 'Ulpana Katzrin' project, where a 500 m³ slab was poured for the customer — a building for a religious girls' school in Katzrin, one of the largest Israeli settlements in the Golan — and a post of 8 November 2021 showed cement blocks supplied for solar installations built by the firm Lesico that power Israeli settlements in the southern occupied Golan. Heidelberg Materials told taz that Hanson Israel is not involved in settlement construction, land development or political decision-making.
One source
Acquisition2024-09-01€13,500,000Stone Quarries Hanson Ltd. (Ramat Gan, Israel)
On 1 September 2024 Heidelberg Materials bought a further 20% of Stone Quarries Hanson Ltd. of Ramat Gan, raising its holding from 50% to 70% and taking control of a company that runs a ready-mixed concrete plant and an asphalt plant on an aggregates quarry site. The group's accounts state that the purchase price consisted of a cash payment of €13.5 million towards partial repayment of a shareholder loan and pre-existing receivables due from the acquired company totalling €53.3 million, with goodwill of €4.6 million; the previously held equity interest was valued at zero at the acquisition date. The 2025 annual report puts part of the Group area's higher aggregates deliveries down to the first full-year consolidation of this subsidiary in the Gush Dan metropolitan area. Buying further into an Israeli business is commerce, not a donation.

Frequently asked questions

Did Heidelberg Materials donate money to Israel or Israeli causes?

We have no records of donations. What is on record is commercial activity in Israel (Operations in Israel, Acquisition), which is not the same as support — see the records on this page.

Where does this information come from?

Every record on this page links to its source — news reports, official company statements, tax filings, or government records. 12 distinct sources are cited for Heidelberg Materials. Our methodology page explains the full verification process.

Sources & citations

Record last updated: 2026-09-25

Companies with documented support