Thirty Israeli victims of Hizbullah rockets have filed an unusual lawsuit in the United States demanding restitution from Hizbullah – and from the rogue dictatorship of North Korea.
Victims are demanding more than $100 million from the two defendents.
The plaintiffs say North Korea bears responsibility for their injuries due to its aid to Hizbullah. North Korea trained senior members of Hizbullah and helped build the group's system of bunkers and rocket warehouses throughout southern Lebanon, they said.
Hizbullah's bunker network enabled the group to fire thousands of rockets at northern Israel, killing dozens of civilians and wounding thousands as Israel's air force struggled to find and destroy the underground launch sites.
The plaintiffs are represented by the Israel Law Center (Shurat HaDin), Israeli attorney Nitzana Darshan-Leitner, and New York attorney Robert Tolchin.
Victims of terrorist attacks in Israel have sued terrorist groups and the states that fund them in the past, but never before have victims gone after North Korea for its support for terrorism. Darshan-Leitner explained that the suit reflects the fact that North Korea has become “a major player in supplying weapons and other material aide to Middle East terrorist groups like Hizbullah.”
As part of its evidence in the case, the prosecution plans to use memos from the United States Congress. One such memo, sent to the U.S. Foreign Affair Committee in 2008, describes a typical Hizbullah bunker built by North Korea, and testifies that the bunkers significantly improved the terrorist group's ability to wage war on Israel and attack its civilians.