Jordan’s sovereign bank, Arab Bank PLC, is charged with serving as the funding platform for the Palestinian terror attacks including the 1995 Beit Lid Junction suicide bombing, the 1996 Dizengoff Center suicide bombing and the 2002 Passover night Netanya Park Hotel suicide bombing, in which 65 Israelis were killed & hundreds wounded.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF, YONAH JEREMY BOB

Some 1,132 Israeli terror victims filed a lawsuit on Tuesday in the Jerusalem District Court for NIS 20 billion against the Arab Bank PLC for allegedly serving as a funding platform for terrorist attacks against Israel.

The lawsuit followed a separate lawsuit filed in the US in 2004, which led to a historic judgment in 2014 and an eventual $1 billion in compensation in a settlement with the bank. Those victims had dual US-Israeli citizenship.

In contrast, a second case by 6,000 victims, including the 1,132 Israeli victims who filed Tuesday, was rejected by the US Supreme Court in April 2018, since they were not US citizens.

A press photographer photographs the damage to the Hotel Park in Netanya following the Palestinian suicide bomber who blew himself up in the hotel on Seder night in 2002, killing 30 people. – Photo: REUTERS

Based in Amman, Jordan, Arab Bank operates some 600 branches around the world, is one of the largest Arab-affiliated banks in the world and is essentially Jordan’s sovereign bank.

Whereas the US lawsuit caused serious business issues for Arab Bank which had large assets that the US could reach, it is unclear what assets Israeli courts might be able to reach.

RELATED:

• Jordanian lawmaker asks Jordanians to martyr themselves against gas deal

Also, even the successful US case was delayed for years due to the positive US-Jordan relationship and it is unclear what position the Israeli government might take regarding this case, since it also has a delicate relationship with Jordan.

The suit claims that the bank actively supported (through funding and logistics) terrorist attacks against Israel between 1995 and 2005 carried out by Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah and other Palestinian terrorist organizations.

Israeli Police sappers searching for additional bombs. – At approximately 9:00 AM of October 19, 1994, a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up, disintegrating the No. 5 bus, killing 22 Israelis and leaving 104 wounded not far from the corner of Dizengoff and Esther Hamalka Streets. – Photo: REUTERS

The attacks mentioned in the suit include the 1995 suicide bombing at the Beit Lid Junction, which claimed the lives of 22 Israelis, a series of suicide attacks against buses which killed scores of Israelis, the 1996 suicide attack outside the Dizengoff Center in Tel Aviv which killed 13 people and the 2002 bombing of the Park Hotel in Netanya on Passover night which killed 30.

The suit was filed by Israeli attorneys Gilad Markman and Benjamin Pearlman.

View original The Jerusalem Post publication at:
https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Israeli-terror-victims-file-massive-NIS-20-billion-suit-against-Arab-Bank-612645

ISRAEL

‘as a light unto the nations’