A private Israeli vehicles and transportation company. The company imports and markets cars, trucks, buses, engines, and heavy mechanical machinery and provides leasing, trade-in, insurance and funding services.

In June 2022, the Israeli Ministry of Defense responded to a Freedom of Information request submitted by Who Profits, which noted that between the years 2017-2021, it purchased NIS 28,104,830.98 worth of services from the company for Volvo equipment, including Volvo vehicles, Volvo spare parts and the maintenance of existing Volvo equipment in the ministry’s use. Additionally, it purchased NIS 17, 792,161.94 worth of other equipment (excluding Volvo).

In 2019 and 2020, the company provided maintenance services to buses and marine engines serving the Israeli police. Additionally, in 2020 the company sold a bus to the Israeli police in an amount of NIS 1,123,697.

The company is the majority shareholder (73.4%) of Merkavim Transportation Technologies, a private Israeli company that manufactures armored buses used in bus routes to settlements in the occupied West Bank. The other 26.5% of Merkavim’s shares are held by the Swedish corporation Volvo Group.

Merkavim’s armored bus, the Mars Defender, was developed in collaboration with the Israeli military. Israel Military Industries (IMI), formerly a state-owned company and now part of Elbit Systems, developed the armor in a joint project with the Israeli Transportation Ministry, Israel Police and Egged.

Until 2017, Egged operated an armored bus fleet of 60 vehicles that served settlements in the regional councils of Shomron, Gush Etzion, Mateh Binyamin and Mount Hebron in the occupied West Bank. In 2017, as part of the privatization process of Israeli public transit, this activity was transferred to Egged Taavura, jointly owned by Egged and Taavura Holdings. In 2016, Egged Taavura and other companies ordered 71 Mars Defender armored buses from Merkavim to be used in settlements.

Additionally, in previous years, and in collaboration with Israel Prison Service (IPS), Merkavim developed a specially designed prisoner transport vehicle based on its Mars model. These buses are used by IPS to transport Palestinian prisoners inside the occupied West Bank and from the West Bank to Israeli prisons within the Green Line. The imprisonment of detainees from the oPt in facilities within Israel violates Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which dictates clearly that the occupying power must hold the detainees of such a territory in prison facilities within that occupied territory. Merkavim also provides services to the Nachshon Unit, the operational arm of IPS that is responsible, among other things, for the transport of prisoners. Additionally, In August 2017, an Afikim public bus of the Mars Defender model was documented in the route to the settlement of Kdumim in the occupied West Bank.

Despite the fact Volvo has an agreement with Mayer’s Cars and Trucks that its buses should not be used for prisoner transport, Swedish media reported that three prison transport buses were produced in 2015.

The company’s fully owned subsidiary, Kavim Public Transportation, operates public bus lines to the settlements of Beitar Illit and Modiin Illit in the occupied West Bank.

Several Kavim bus lines also serve the settlement neighborhood of Ramot in occupied East Jerusalem and the settlement of Givat Zeev in the occupied West Bank.

Through its subsidiaries, Kavim was also a partner in the Society for the Preservation of Nature Megalim Eretz, a limited partnership that provides guided tours to Israeli high school students to the occupied Syrian Golan.

K.S. Holdings & Properties Mayer Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of the company, has a leasing agreement with the Israeli Civil Administration for a 9,163 m2 property in Mishor Adumim Industrial Zone in the settlement of Maale Adumim in the occupied West Bank, located on the lands of the Palestinian village Khan al-Ahmar.

Through K.S. Holdings & Properties Mayer Ltd, the company also holds a 50% stake in Mayer Davidov Garages, which operates a garage in the Mishor Adumim Industrial Zone in the settlement of Maale Adumim in the occupied West Bank.