American victims, families sue Iran over Oct. 7 attack

Dozens of families filed a joint federal lawsuit on Sunday against the Islamic Republic of Iran and several terror groups for their roles in funding and carrying out the brutal Oct. 7, 2023 attack in Israel. The complaint names Iran and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, along with several U.S.-designated terror groups including Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Hezbollah. Nearly 40 families in the lawsuit chronicle the damage the Iranian defendants and their terror associates caused. Victims, their estates, and their families are seeking damages for physical and mental anguish, suffering, and economic losses, with the amount of restitution to be determined at trial.

How can Iran be legally implicated in the Hamas attack? Iran and its proxies financed and supported the Oct. 7 massacre, now the largest attack on Jews since the Holocaust, according to the lawsuit. Though Iranian soldiers did not directly take part in the attack, Iran is complicit in the torture, killings, and kidnappings that took place by arming and training the terror operatives who injured and killed plaintiffs, according to the lawsuit.

As evidence, the lawsuit cites what attorneys say are Hamas financial records and correspondence recovered from abandoned bases in Gaza detailing regular payments from Iran dating back to years prior to the attack. The plaintiff’s lawyers also detail collusion between Hamas and Iran since at least 2022 on what the lawsuit characterizes as a “Big Project” with Iran’s Axis of Resistance. The lawsuit says this project ultimately became the Oct. 7 invasion. A 2022 meeting memo showed Hamas started requesting monthly payments of $7 million from Iran to mobilize and prepare for conflict with Israel, according to the lawsuit. Attorneys also detail the relationship of Lebanon’s Hezbollah and other terror organizations colluding with Hamas to launch the attack.

This lawsuit is the first step in a much broader effort to hold Hamas and its benefactors legally accountable for the massacre, Lee Wolosky and Gary Osen, attorneys for the plaintiffs, told WORLD. The evidence clearly showed Iran’s central role in financing and organizing what was historically the worst surprise attack on the State of Israel, the pair added.

Dig deeper: Read my report in WORLD Magazine for background on Iran’s newly elected centrist president.