Yet another lawsuit is being levied against the Palestinian Authority (PA) on Tuesday afternoon, as 26 US citizens file a complaint to the Department of Justice seeking restitution against Hamas for war crimes committed during Operation Protective Edge in Gaza. 

The lawsuit notes that Palestinian Arab terrorists deliberately fired rockets at Ben-Gurion Airport during the summer of 2014, as the US citizens waited to board flights. 

Any person using any materials, illegally and intentionally, to wage a violent attack against an international airport, could be sentenced to 20 years in prison by US law if American citizens were found to be present. 

In this incident, the citizens were forced to run for shelter after “code red” alerts sounded, and several passengers on Delta Airlines Flight 468 from New York to Israel were temporarily stranded in Paris after an emergency landing. 

The lawsuit will be filed against several Hamas leaders, including Khaled Meshaal, Sami Abu Zuhri, Hamdan Awad, Raed Sa’ad, and Salah Omar Daloul, among others.

Legal rights group Shurat Hadin, headed by Attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, and Attorney Robert Tulchin, are behind the lawsuit and are presenting the claim to the Department of Justice. 

“Hamas’s attack on Ben-Gurion International Airport was a threat on the lives of American citizens that were at the airport at the time, and therefore the US Attorney General has authority to put on trial those who threatened American citizens in this way,” Darshan-Leitner explained to Arutz Sheva last month.

She elaborated that the types of danger that qualify under the law include flights being cancelled due to a rocket that was fired at the airport and directly struck a home in nearby Yehud. Likewise Americans who had to take cover in shelters at the airport due to the rockets also count.

“After we have all these figures we will turn to the American Attorney General and demand that he put on trial Mashaal and those who were responsible for the rocket fire from Hamas,” said Darshan-Leitner, noting that Hamas proudly took credit for the attacks leaving no doubt as to the responsible party.