"It is true that we cannot expect companies to track their vehicles after the initial sale,” said Noam Perry, strategic research coordinator at the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organisation in the US that researches companies supplying the Israeli military.

“However, this is a multi-million-dollar contract delivered directly to the Israeli Ministry of Defense at a time when it is accused of committing war crimes. Any due diligence process should have raised questions about the use of these forklifts.”

The Israeli defence ministry declined to comment.