On Feb. 23, the Palestinian Authority and Palestinian Liberation Organization were found liable by a Southern District jury in Manhattan for their role in knowingly providing material support to the perpetrators of six terrorist attacks in Israel between 2002 and 2004 that left a number of Americans dead or seriously injured. The civil lawsuit was filed under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), which allows American nationals who are victims of international terrorism to sue in the United States. The jury awarded $218.5 million in damages, which was automatically tripled to $655.5 million under the anti-terrorism law.
The Palestinian Authority case is the second successful lawsuit brought under the ATA. In September 2014, a federal jury in the Eastern District found Arab Bank, a Jordanian bank headquartered in Amman, Jordan, liable for supporting acts of international terrorism for knowingly providing financial services to Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization. The case now turns to the penalty phase of the proceedings, which has not yet been held. Considering the sheer number of plaintiffs, who include 247 people that were seriously injured or had a family member killed in Hamas-related terrorist attacks, the calculation of damages could easily exceed $1 billion.
