From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, November 19, 2024
Court rules PA must compensate victims of 2001 Jerusalem Sbarro suicide bombing
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The Jerusalem District Court ruled earlier today that the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization are required to pay tens of millions of shekels to victims of the 2001 terrorist bombing of the Sbarro pizza restaurant in central Jerusalem, Channel 12 reports.
Sixteen civilians were killed in the August 9, 2001 suicide bombing, including seven children, and 130 people were wounded, in one of the deadliest terrorist attacks of the Second Intifada.
The court made the determination on the basis of the PA’s yearslong policy of making financial payments to terrorists and the families of terrorists, the TV report says.
It says the precedent-setting court ruling potentially also opens the door for victims of the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 massacre to seek financial compensation from the PA.
The court issued its ruling in response to two suits that victims of the 2001 bombing have been pursuing for the past two decades, the report says, and relied upon a Supreme Court ruling that the Palestinian Authority can be held liable for terrorist acts, due to its policy of paying stipends to security prisoners in Israeli jails and the families of those killed during attacks on Israelis.
Justice Isaac Amit, setting out the Supreme Court ruling in April 2022, found that the decision to pay convicted Palestinian terrorists and those killed as part of the “struggle against Israel” made the PA liable for their actions. “[The PA] expresses its consent to their actions, in a manner that takes responsibility for the acts. This justifies that [the PA] will be assigned personal and direct responsibility,” Amit wrote.
Meir Schijveschuurder, a lawyer for the victims whose own parents and three brothers were among the fatalities in the bombing, hailed today’s ruling, telling Channel 12, that the court decision would help quell “rampant terrorism because the Palestinians will not be able to bear the financial consequences.” The decision, he said, “will bring relief to the families of the victims, and significantly reduce terrorism.”
The Channel 12 report indicates that the compensation ordered by the court could be paid out of funds that Israel has been withholding since 2018 from the monthly tax revenues it collects on behalf of the PA.
The Times of Israel Community.