Victims of Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist attacks, and their relatives, on Thursday sued the United Nations agency dedicated to Palestinians, allegedly for aiding the armed groups and fueling terrorism.
The plaintiffs are seeking unspecified monetary damages, both compensatory and punitive, from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), The New York Times reported on Saturday.
Lawyers for the U.N. agency have argued it is exempt from such suits because it has diplomatic immunity. The Biden administration supported that position, but in April, lawyers in U.S. President Donald Trump’s Justice Department reversed the government’s stance, paving the way for the latest lawsuit.
A similar case has been playing out since last year in federal court in Manhattan.
Hundreds of UNRWA workers are believed to have engaged in terrorism in recent years. On Oct. 7, 2023, UNRWA social worker Faisal Ali Mussalem al Naami and a colleague were caught on film loading into a truck the lifeless body of an Israeli man, Yonatan Samerano, providing evidence that’s helped focus attention on UNRWA and its well-documented, years-long record of complicity in terrorism and incitement.
Last year, Israel’s foreign ministry published a list of names and ID numbers of 108 UNRWA employees that Israel said were also Hamas terrorists. It was a “small fraction,” a Foreign Ministry official wrote, of a much larger list including hundreds of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad members who also worked for UNRWA. The wider list could not be released due to security considerations.
Israel’s Knesset in October made it illegal for the UNRWA to operate in Israeli territory, and for state officials to cooperate with the agency. UNRWA has fired or suspended several staffers accused of terrorism has denied any systemic complicity in terrorism by its staff in Gaza and beyond.
