Unsealing secret Hamas papers, families of October 7 victims sue Iran in US court

Families of American victims of the October 7 terror assault led by Hamas last year filed suit on Sunday in a US federal court against Iran and an array of linked terror groups, presenting what they say is new proof of Tehran’s involvement in the attack, according to a lawyer representing several plaintiffs.

The suit, which has been seen by The Times of Israel, relies on what attorneys representing the plaintiffs say are secret documents uncovered by lawyer Gary Osen showing Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps funneling millions of dollars to Hamas.

The complaint also includes a document from a 2022 meeting of senior Hamas members Yahya Sinwar, Khalil al-Hayya and others plotting out the contours of a mutual defense agreement between Hamas and other Iran-backed terror groups should war break out. The paper includes a decision to request Iran send Hamas $7 million monthly “to mobilize and prepare” for “confrontations” with Israel.

According to the New York Times, the $7 million monthly fee was sought to ready for the October 7 attack, in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 were seized as hostages as thousands of Hamas-led terrorists rampaged through communities in southern Israel under the cover of massive rocket fire across the country.

Aside from Iran and the IRGC, the suit also names Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Many of the victims whose families brought the suit were killed or kidnapped on October 7, although other plaintiffs include residents of southern Israel who suffered emotionally during or after the attacks. Families of several soldiers killed in combat were also named.

Among the 37 families of victims in the suit is Yechiel Leiter, who is set to become Israel’s ambassador to the US. Leiter’s son Moshe Leiter was killed in battle in Gaza in late November 2023. Other victims named in the suit include Itay Chen, 19, who was killed and abducted by Hamas on October 7 and whose body is still held in Gaza; Roey Weiser, who was killed fighting Hamas terrorists at the Kerem Shalom Crossing; and Judih Weinstein and Gadi Haggai, who were shot and killed during the Hamas invasion of Kibbutz Nir Oz, and their bodies taken to Gaza.

The attorneys representing the plaintiffs stated that the documents included in the suit aim to provide specific details regarding Hamas’s “efforts to deepen their ties with Hezbollah and coordinate activities with” Iran and the IRGC.

In one document, Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh apparently suggests to Sinwar that the terror group should strengthen its ties with Iran and Hezbollah by mending its diplomatic relations with Syria — which it eventually did in October 2022.

Haniyeh, in the same document, posits that Hamas should also invest effort into “strengthening our ties with Russia and forming strong relationships with Algeria, while simultaneously maintaining our existing ties with Turkey, Qatar, and Egypt.”

The attorneys also acquired a summary of a briefing given by Hamas number three Marwan Issa, in which he provided updates about progress made in strengthening Hamas’s relations with Iran and its proxies, and ensuring that the group will be provided with assistance in the event that it launches an attack on Israel.

“It has been concluded that a clear message must be conveyed to A-Sayyid
Hasan Nasrallah that if Iran or the resistance in Lebanon would face a war in the future, we, the Hamas Movement and the Al-Qassam, are fully
prepared to participate, in full force, in those battles,” the document reads.

“Moreover, in that same message, if a confrontation erupts between us and the occupation [Israel] on the future of Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa, and if an open confrontation results… what is needed is for the Axis of Resistance to intervene, headed by the [Hezbollah] and other factions [Iraq, Yemen, and Syria].”

“It is up to the [Islamic] Republic to decide whether to participate, and we haven’t set this as a condition for it, but it is of paramount importance that the [Hezbollah] take an active role,” Issa wrote.

Just as Issa hoped, Hezbollah came to the aid of Hamas on October 8, 2023, when it began its near-daily, at times deadly, attacks on Israeli communities and military outposts close to the Lebanon border, which resulted in the evacuation and ongoing displacement of some 60,000 people from the north.

The Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have also participated, launching attacks on both Israel and global shipping in support of Hamas. Iran-backed militias in Iraq have also launched drones at Israel in a show of support for Hamas.

The lawsuit also includes a document that delves into Iran’s extensive role in financing Hamas’s operations, including a short report compiled by Issa detailing all monetary transfers paid by Iran to terror group leaders Sinwar and Haniyeh between 2014 and 2020. The three terror operatives have all since been assassinated.

According to the document, the yearly amounts received by the two terror chiefs ranged from $12 million to $48 million.

The suit, filed in Washington DC, seeks unspecified financial compensation for the families under the US Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act and Anti-Terrorism Act.

The lawsuit is not the first to have been filed against Iran over the last year by victims of the October 7 attacks.

In February 2024, 67 plaintiffs filed a lawsuit in the District Court of the District of Columbia seeking $1 billion in damages from Iran, which they said bore “direct responsibility” for the terror onslaught.

Another lawsuit, this one filed in a federal court in New York, charged that Iran, Syria and North Korea had supplied the terror operatives with money, weapons, and know-how needed to carry out the assault.

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