Arab Bank makes deal in Hamas terror lawsuit
Settlement reached between bank and 300 plaintiffs over attacks in Israel in early 2000s

NEW YORK (AP) — A settlement has been reached in a lawsuit accusing the large Jordan-based Arab Bank of sharing responsibility for a wave of Hamas-sanctioned suicide bombings in Israel in the early 2000s that left several Americans dead or wounded, lawyers said Friday.
Details of the deal between more than 300 plaintiffs and Arab Bank weren’t disclosed. It came three days before the damages phase of the case was scheduled to go to trial in federal court in Brooklyn.
A spokeswoman for one of the plaintiff law firms, Motley Rice, confirmed there was a settlement and said the framework will be finalized over the next few months. Arab Bank declined to discuss details.
The high-stakes legal offshoot of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had pitted American victims of terror attacks in the early 2000s against an international bank with several branches in Gaza and the West Bank. The victims sued in 2004, accusing the bank of knowingly helping Hamas fund a “death and dismemberment benefit plan” for martyrs from the territories.
The jury heard Hamas experts and other plaintiff witnesses attempt to link extremists to Arab Bank accounts and detail how cash payments were funneled through the bank and into the hands of the families of suicide bombers. The defense argued that people the plaintiffs identified as Hamas operatives who did business with the bank weren’t on a terrorist watch lists compiled by authorities in the United States and other Western nations.
It marked the first time a bank had faced a trial under the Anti-Terrorism Act, which allows victims of US-designated foreign terrorist organizations to seek compensation. The US State Department designated Hamas a terrorist group in 1997.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press.