Washington, D.C. — August 1, 2025 —Attorneys representing victims of the HAMAS-led October 7th barbaric terrorist attack across the border between Gaza and Southern Israel filed a sweeping civil complaint today in federal court against the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), and its financial backer, US-based fundraising non-profit entity the Friends of UNRWA Association Inc. d/b/a UNRWA USA National Committee, Inc. (UNRWA USA). The approximately two-hundred plaintiffs include victims, survivors, and family members of individuals murdered, raped, maimed, and taken hostage before, on and since October 7th, 2023.
The Complaint alleges that UNRWA intentionally and materially supported HAMAS, HEZBOLLAH and other terrorist organizations in the years leading up to the October 7th 2023 massacre, enabling the group’s genocidal campaign through aid diversion, indoctrination of hate as taught and encouraged in UNRWA schools, concealment of weaponry in UNRWA facilities, and direct involvement of UNRWA’s paid employees in the HAMAS terror attacks.
“This is a case seeking justice and accountability against an entity that holds itself out as ‘humanitarian’ but which has utterly failed in its mission and purpose while unconscionably providing material support for terror,” said lead counsel Richard D. Heideman, senior counsel at the D.C. based law-firm Heideman Nudelman & Kalik, PC, which has represented American victims of terror for more than twenty years. Heideman continued “The slaughter, rape and kidnapping of innocents is a gross violation of international law, appropriately punishable in the courts of the United States under applicable statutes. The victims and their families demand justice, and they deserve it now.”
The Complaint lays out detailed evidence of, among other things, UNRWA’s:
- Facilitation of HAMAS’s influence over the Gazan population;
- Provision of access and use of UNRWA schools, clinics, and vehicles to store and transport weapons, and serve other terrorist infrastructural needs;
- The use of hate and indoctrination in the UNRWA schools and its role in radicalizing Palestinian youth and legitimizing violence against Israeli and American civilians; and
- Sweeping entanglement with HAMAS-controlled entities.
The Complaint invokes U.S. anti-terrorism laws to hold UNRWA and UNRWA USA fully accountable under the Anti-Terrorism Act.
The filing comes amid mounting international scrutiny of UNRWA’s activities following revelations by Israel and independent NGOs of evidence establishing UNRWA’s long-standing significant support for HAMAS, HEZBOLLAH and other terrorist organizations and that a number of UNRWA employees actively participated in the October 7th attacks. Several Western governments, including the United States, temporarily suspended funding to UNRWA in early 2024 before resuming support under international pressure.
This legal action seeks to hold UNRWA and UNRWA USA accountable amid broader discourse on how international aid and other diplomatic tools have been misused and weaponized to facilitate and fuel terrorism and human rights abuses under the guise of humanitarian assistance and support.
About Heideman Nudelman & Kalik, P.C.
The law firm of Heideman Nudelman & Kalik, P.C. (www.HNKlaw.com), based in Washington, DC, is a global firm with affiliates in various parts of the world. Richard D. Heideman, Noel J. Nudelman, Tracy R. Kalik, Joseph H. Tipograph and other members, associates, of counsel and affiliates of the firm have extensive experience in complex litigation. The firm has served as lead counsel in numerous cases on behalf of victims of terror and their family members who have been killed or injured in terrorist attacks throughout the world. The firm has successfully brought cases against Libya, the Syrian Arab Republic, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Arab Bank plc and others accused of funding or providing material support for terror and continues committed to seeking justice on behalf of Americans who have suffered tragic murders or maiming at the hands of terrorists, their sponsors, supporters and funders.
HNK, which represented many of the Americans killed or injured in the Second Intifada, has previously brought cases where US Federal courts have repeatedly found Iran and Syria guilty of supporting HAMAS and awarded judgments against both countries in those cases. HNK also has obtained judgments and/or settlements, many of which have resulted in financial recoveries on behalf of its clients who were victims of acts of terrorism perpetrated by Libya, Iran, Syria, HAMAS, Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Hezbollah, ISIS, the Taliban, the Abu Nidal Terror Organization and others, and has many pending actions on behalf of American victims of terror attacks against Iran, Syria, Arab Bank plc, the PA/PLO, Qatari entities and others accused of providing material support for terror in cases including hijackings, hostage-taking, hotel bombings, stabbings, shootings and other heinous terror attacks.
Richard D. Heideman, Senior Counsel of Heideman Nudelman & Kalik, PC, previously served as President of B’nai B’rith International, is the Chairman of The Israel Forever Foundation, and is the author of The Hague Odyssey: Israel’s Struggle for Security on the Front Lines of Terrorism and Her Battle for Justice at the United Nations (Bartleby Press) and also The Bloody Price of Freedom (Gefen Publishing House). He and other members of the firm are available for interviews and comments on matters relating to the ongoing battle against terror and the important use of the American legal system in pursuit of justice.
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