Victims: "Iran Incited Hamas to Attack Israel"
Victims of the surprise attack on October 7 last year by the Palestinian armed group Hamas have filed a lawsuit in a U.S. court, accusing Iran of being behind the attack and demanding $1 billion (approximately 1.334 trillion KRW) in compensation.
According to U.S. NBC News and Bloomberg on the 1st (local time), more than 60 U.S. citizens and their families who were killed or taken hostage in the Hamas surprise attack submitted a complaint to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia the day before, holding Hamas directly responsible for the attack.
The plaintiffs total 67 people, consisting of those who were taken hostage by Hamas, as well as families of the deceased and hostages. They claimed that Iran provided weapons and supplies to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and instigated the recent Hamas attack.
The plaintiffs also included in the complaint claims that Iranian leaders met several times with Hamas and PIJ leadership before last year’s Hamas attack, based on media reports, and that Iran encouraged them to carry out terrorist acts against Israel.
They also argued that Iran, facing isolation as Israel and Saudi Arabia pursue normalization of diplomatic relations through U.S. mediation, aimed to disrupt this process. The complaint included testimonies from victims, photos of bodies, and injured individuals.
On the same day this lawsuit was filed, another Hamas hostage victim, Judith Ranan, filed a civil lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against cryptocurrency exchanges that allowed Hamas’s financial transactions, as well as against Iran and Syria. This lawsuit is expected to lead to similar cases.
However, Bloomberg forecasted that legal cases against terrorist organizations or their sponsoring states usually take several years to reach a verdict, and even if compensation is awarded, enforcing it is nearly impossible.
In the past, lawsuits filed by victims of the 9/11 attacks against Iran took 14 years to reach a verdict, and Iran did not issue any response to the ruling.
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