TERRORISMAmerican Victims of Hamas Attack on Israel Plan to Sue North Korea

By Jiha Ham, Sanghoon Lee, and Christy Lee

Families of Americans killed and injured in Hamas’ October 7 terror attack in Israel are contemplating a lawsuit against North Korea for indirectly supplying the Palestinian militant group with weapons, according to an Israeli attorney representing the families.

Weapons that Hamas used in its surprise attack on Israel were provided by North Korea “knowingly and intentionally,” said Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, an Israeli attorney and human rights activist who spoke with VOA’s Korean Service in Tel Aviv on December 27.

“North Korea knows its weapons go to Iran, and Iran gives the weapons to Hamas,” Darshan-Leitner continued, adding that Pyongyang “never once warned Iran not to send the weapons to Hamas.”

This makes North Korea “liable,” she said, explaining that she and her legal associates are considering filing a lawsuit in U.S. court against those countries that supported Hamas, such as Iran and North Korea, on behalf of American victims of the October 7 attack and their families.

More than 30 Americans, many of them dual U.S.-Israeli citizens, were killed in the attack that initiated the latest round of violence between Hamas and Israel.

Darshan-Leitner is representing 10 Americans, including family members who lost their loved ones, as well as U.S. citizens who were injured or who incurred property damage in the attack.

VOA’s Korean Service contacted the North Korean mission to the U.N. seeking a response to a possible lawsuit against the regime by the American victims of the Hamas attack, but it did not respond.

The attorney said she expects more U.S. victims to join the suit, including hostages seized in October if they return safely.

“The burden is on us, the plaintiffs, to prove the case,” Darshan-Leitner said. “We are using experts who know a lot about North Korea, know how North Korean weapons wound up in the hands of Hamas.”

North Korean weapons have been found in Israel and Gaza since the attack on October 7. An Israeli military official said during a media tour in October that about 10% of the Hamas weapons recovered after the attack were made in North Korea.

Lieutenant Colonel Idan Sharon-Kettler, deputy commander of the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) enemy equipment collection unit, told VOA’s Korean Service on December 28 in Tzrifin, Israel, that Hamas modified North Korea’s rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) to make them more powerful.

“We see supplies coming from different countries, among them, North Korea,” said Sharon-Kettler at an IDF facility where recovered weapons were displayed.