Family members of U.S. citizens killed, and American survivors injured during the Hamas massacre in southern Israel on October 7, 2003, initiated a lawsuit against the Islamic Republic this week, according to a report by The New York Times.
The legal action, submitted in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., alleges Tehran funded the invasion and facilitated coordination between Hamas and the theocracy’s regional allies.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs point to documents retrieved by Israeli military personnel in Gaza, which describe a secret meeting held in December 2022. At this gathering, Yahya Sinwar, the then-leader of Hamas in the coastal enclave, is said to have requested $7 million per month from members of the regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to fund his “big project,” the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust.
The lawsuit also names Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine as defendants, all of which are recognized as terrorist organizations by the U.S. government.
The complainants are requesting damages under the 1977 Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act and the 1996 Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, measures that have previously been invoked against the Iran regime for their longtime support of global terrorist factions.
The State Department has confirmed that 46 U.S. nationals were murdered during the day-long rampage, and an additional dozen were abducted by the infiltrators. Among the 12 taken captive, four have died in detention, four have been released, and four are still believed to be alive, though they remain imprisoned.
The lawsuit also encompasses U.S. citizens who have been casualties while serving in the IDF as part of Israel’s military response to the incursion.
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