October 7 Victims to Sue Iran in U.S. Federal Court

Sixty-seven plaintiffs filed suit in the District of Columbia on Wednesday seeking damages from the government of Iran for supporting the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel.

“Iran bears direct responsibility for the October 7 attacks. Indeed, that point is essentially undisputed. The Iranian regime has openly flaunted its motive for aiding the horrors,” said the plaintiffs, who included surviving victims of the attack and the families of those killed and kidnapped by Hamas.

A landmark U.S. court decision in 2016 held that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) does not protect state sponsors of terrorism from lawsuits. Iran was designated a state sponsor of terrorism in 1984. 

The lawsuit charged Iran, a “sworn enemy of Israel and the United States,” with orchestrating the attack to sabotage diplomacy between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

“As potential Israeli normalization with Saudi Arabia progressed, Iran prepared to reset the regional balance, including by attempting to unite Arab states around the Palestinian cause,” the lawsuit said.

The plaintiffs said they would provide evidence including their own sworn testimony, expert witnesses, and U.S. government documentation on how Iran finances Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and other terrorist groups. One of the Iranian officials named as a conspirator in the attack was Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian.

The lawsuit charged Iran with giving the “green light for Hamas, PIJ, and the other Iran-backed groups to launch the pre-planned attack against Israel, using Iranian intelligence, training, and military supplies” five days before the “deadliest killing of Jews since the Holocaust” was perpetrated. The suit described some of the most heinous atrocities in detail to emphasize the utter depravity of the attack.

The plaintiffs are reportedly seeking over a billion dollars in damages from Iran, including damages from the U.S. Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism funds.

“In many places across the world, Iran’s actions have been met with silence. But Plaintiffs will not be silent. And the laws of the United States are not silent either,” the lawsuit declared.

“As far as I am concerned, Iran is the head of the snake, and no less responsible than Hamas,” said plaintiff Natalia Ben Zvi, whose son Sagiv was murdered by Hamas at the Supernova music festival on October 7.

More suits against Iran are expected. Another case was filed on Wednesday seeking damages from cryptocurrency platform Binance for allowing Hamas to finance its activities by trading on the exchange.

“Since the violence broke out, lawyers from top US firms have stepped in to represent the families of Hamas hostages free of charge, largely helping them deal with the various levels of government investigating the attack. Former National Security Agency director and retired four-star general Keith Alexander pulled together more than a dozen top law firms on a conference call in October, asking what they could do to chip in,” Bloomberg News reported.

Bloomberg added that lawsuits against terrorist groups and state sponsors of terrorism “can drag on for years, and judgments have proved nearly impossible to enforce.” 

“Plaintiffs recognize that prosecuting this litigation to completion may be complex and take time, but they are prepared to do whatever is required to deliver justice for the atrocities Iran directed, armed, and paid for,” said the lawsuit filed on Wednesday.