Survivors of the October 7 Hamas attack and families of the victims sue UNRWA

More than 100 victims of the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel and their families are demanding compensation from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNIF). The members of the UN relief agency are accused of having links to terrorism and of having helped Hamas on the day of the attack.

The plaintiffs filed the lawsuit on Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Chicago-based law firm MM-Law LLC and New York-based law firm Amini LLC filed the suit on behalf of the victims and their families. The defendants named in the lawsuit are current or former senior UNRWA officials, including Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini.

The lawsuit also alleges that UNWRA funds intended to support the Palestinian people ended up in the hands of Hamas terrorists, who used the funds to attack Israel.

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“Hamas did not commit these atrocities without assistance,” the lawsuit states. “It was aided and abetted, among others, by the defendants named above, who are now or formerly senior officials of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, as well as by UNRWA itself. Together, they spent more than a decade prior to the October 7 attack helping Hamas build the terrorist infrastructure and personnel necessary to carry out the October 7 attack. This included knowingly providing Hamas with the U.S. dollars in cash it needed to pay smugglers for weapons, explosives, and other terrorist materials.”

“As previously stated, the defendants were repeatedly warned that their policies were in direct support of Hamas,” the lawsuit continues. “Despite these warnings, the defendants continued to pursue those very policies.”

The lawsuit also alleges that the aid agency allowed Hamas to use its facilities to store weapons and build tunnels under UNRWA buildings. The lawsuit also cites several stories from former hostages, including one who was released in November and told the public that she was held captive in the home of a UNRWA teacher.

“UNRWA primary school teacher Yusef Zidan Salimam Al-Khuajri (fighter in the Central Camp Brigades of the Qassam Brigades) took part in the October 7 attack and was caught boasting on the phone about the female prisoner he had captured approximately 7 hours after Hamas entered Israel,” the document said of another of the hostages.

“The Arabic term ‘sabaya’ that he used for the Israeli woman is an Islamic term that describes women and children as the property of a Muslim man,” the lawsuit continues. “The interpretation also has the context of slave and is exactly the same word that ISIS used for the Yazidi women they captured and used as sex slaves.”

A report published earlier this year by the Wall Street Journal estimated that about 1,200 UNRWA staff in Gaza have ties to Hamas or other terrorist groups. The report suggested that about half of the agency’s staff have family members who belong to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The plaintiffs accused UNRWA of funneling money to terrorists by paying its employees in U.S. dollars and forcing them to visit money changers and exchange the dollars for the local currency. Hamas operates money changers and makes a profit on each money exchange, the lawsuit says.

The plaintiffs claim that UNRWA was warned “multiple times” that its actions were aiding Hamas, but that the agency did not change its policy. According to the lawsuit, UNRWA “knowingly provided Hamas with the U.S. dollars in cash it needed to pay smugglers for weapons, explosives, and other terrorist materials.”

UNRWA did not immediately respond to The Christian Post’s request for comment.

On the day of the attack, Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007, killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted more than 240 others. Terrorists massacred kibbutz residents and visitors to a music festival that lasted all night.

The attack prompted Israel to launch a military offensive in Gaza. The Hamas-run Health Ministry claims that more than 37,000 people have died since the war began last October, but did not distinguish between fighters and civilians.

According to the lawsuit, UNRWA helped Hamas, among other things, by allowing the terrorist group to use its schools and other buildings as weapons depots – believing that these were places that Israel could not attack.

“Whether the defendants knew the precise plans for the attack or its scope is irrelevant to their liability. They knew that Hamas openly proclaimed its goal of attacking and murdering innocent civilians in violation of international law and United States treaties, and they knew that the material support it provided would strengthen Hamas’ ability to do so,” the lawsuit states.

“The resulting atrocities were foreseeable, and the defendants are liable for aiding and abetting genocide, crimes against humanity, and torture by Hamas.”

The lawsuit also raised concerns about the materials UNRWA uses in its schools. The plaintiffs claim that the textbooks “indoctrinate children from an early age into a death cult ideology of hatred and genocide,” turning them into potential terrorist recruits ready to commit terrorist attacks.”