The Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organization’s attempt to dismiss a lawsuit brought by American relatives and survivors of Palestinian terrorism was denied by a US federal judge on Monday, according to court documents and parties involved in the case who spoke with The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.
The lawsuit alleges that the PA’s financial support for terrorists imprisoned by Israel or killed while carrying out attacks on Israeli citizens encouraged two Hamas attacks that killed American citizens.
US District Judge Colleen McMahon ultimately ruled that the PA’s public commitment to pay Palestinian prisoners who commit acts of terrorism can constitute assistance under the Antiterrorism Act.
American victims challenge PA terror payments
The plaintiffs are Stuart Force and Israeli-American Hananel Gez. Force is the father of 29-year-old Taylor Force, an American-Israeli US Army veteran who was stabbed to death by a terrorist in Jaffa in 2016.
Gez survived a 2025 shooting attack near the settlement of Bruchin in which his 30-year-old pregnant wife, Tzeela Gez, was killed. Their son, Ravid Chaim Gez, was delivered by emergency C-section and succumbed to his wounds 15 days later.
Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, which is representing the plaintiffs, told The Post that the PA’s attempt to evade the lawsuit had had a profound impact on the victims.
“Stuart Force buried his son more than ten years ago and has spent the decade since heroically doing everything he can to force this program into the light; the federal statute condemning it carries Taylor’s name,” he said. “Hananel Gez buried his wife, and fifteen days later he buried the newborn son she was on her way to deliver. It is too horrible to even think about. The defendants’ answer to these two men was a motion arguing that they should be turned away before a single document changed hands, including the remarkable suggestion that Mr. Force’s earlier pursuit of justice should bar this one. The court has now rejected that. For the families, this order means the case will be decided on evidence rather than on the defendants’ say-so, and they intend to see it through.”
Judge rejects PA, PLO arguments for dismissal
Goldfeder said the PA’s and PLO’s motion to dismiss relied on four arguments. First, they argued that a payment made after an attack is over cannot be considered aiding the attack. Second, they claimed that, given their willingness to fund terrorists from any faction, the connection to the Hamas attacks was too remote.
Third, they claimed, using media reports and government reports as evidence, that Hamas and the PA were enemies. Finally, they argued that Stuart Force was judicially barred from bringing the suit because in earlier lawsuits he had described Hamas as the PA’s rival.
“Judge McMahon rejected every one,” Goldfeder said, insisting that the publicized promise of payment made before the attacks, which both attackers were aware of, had influenced the terrorists’ decision to carry out the attacks.
“A bounty does not stop being a bounty because anyone can collect it. The outside materials could not be accepted for their truth on a motion to dismiss,” he argued. “And nothing Mr. Force said in prior litigation is inconsistent with this case; the court recognized that political hostility toward Hamas can coexist with a program that pays Hamas members for qualifying violence.”
Goldfeder pointed out that common law has “treated encouragement as a form of assistance for centuries” and that the PA’s own statute clearly defines those entitled to its pay-for-slay payments as anyone imprisoned for participation in “the struggle against the occupation.”
“Their own pay scale rises with the length of the sentence, which means it rises with the severity of the attack. Their own Institution for Families of the Martyrs investigates each death to confirm it was terrorism-related before a shekel moves,” he continued. “I would have to believe that genuine welfare programs do not audit for terrorism as a condition of eligibility.”
PA payment reforms face scrutiny in lawsuit
Goldfeder, aligning with an assessment published by the US State Department in April, said the PA’s attempts to repackage payments to convicted terrorists and their families as welfare were easily refuted by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s own public admissions.
In February 2025, the payments were transferred from Ramallah’s Social Development Ministry to the Palestinian National Institution for Economic Empowerment, framing the funds as welfare. Despite this, as recently as May 2026, Abbas admitted that funds were needed to pay the salaries of terrorists.
Payments to the family of the terrorist who killed Tzeela Gez were processed in August last year, despite the repackaging of the payments.
“Renaming the ledger does not change what it pays for. Discovery will follow the money, and one of the attackers had already been imprisoned for terror activity, so the complaint alleges he knew exactly what he and his family stood to receive,” Goldfeder said.
Lawsuit could carry financial consequences for PA, PLO
Asked what the lawsuit could mean for the victims’ families, Goldfeder said it would mark the beginning of accountability and justice for families who have waited decades.
“Congress found in the Taylor Force Act that these payments are an incentive to commit acts of terror, and it cut aid accordingly, but a congressional finding does not compensate a widower or a grieving father. A verdict would convert that finding into a judgment, with the treble damages the Antiterrorism Act provides,” he highlighted.
Citing the landmark 2025 case Fuld v. Palestine Liberation Organization, in which the US Supreme Court unanimously ruled that federal courts can exercise personal jurisdiction over the Palestinian Authority and PLO in lawsuits brought by American victims of international terrorism, Goldfeder said the ruling could also deter the PA and PLO from financing future acts.
“The only currency the defendants have consistently shown they understand [is] money,” he said, adding that he hoped the lawsuit would fundamentally change the PA’s calculus when it came to compensating terrorists and their families.
“At some point the PA will have to run the arithmetic President Abbas himself proposed: if there is one penny left, it can go to the prisoners and the martyrs, or it can go toward satisfying American judgments,” he continued.
The PLO and PA have until September 15 to answer the complaint.
